Class 8 English Chapter 5: Somebody’s Mother

One small event, told slowly

Nothing large happens in this poem. An old woman crosses a street with help. That is the whole story. Mary Dow Brine spends thirty-six lines on an event that took a minute. The interest is not in what happens. It is in who does it, who walks past, and what each of them is thinking while the snow lies on the street.

What we can see of the woman

She is old, ragged and grey. Ragged here means that her clothes are worn and torn, so we learn that she is poor as well as old. The cold has bent her. Her feet are aged and slow. Every detail is something a stranger could notice in a second, which is the point: anybody passing could see she needed help.

The street

The street is wet with snow that has just fallen. That single line does a lot. Wet snow is slippery, and slippery ground is dangerous for slow feet. The weather is not decoration here; it is the reason she cannot cross alone.

Alone in a crowd

She stands at the crossing and waits a long time. The poem says she is alone and uncared for, and then adds the word that makes it hurt: she is amid the throng. A throng is a crowd. She is not on an empty road. People are all around her, and none of them stops.

Seen, and not heeded

The crowd passes by and does not heed the glance of her anxious eyes. Heeded means paid attention to. Read it carefully and you will see the poem is not saying they failed to notice her. She looked at them, hoping. They saw the look and walked on.

The boys arrive

Then the mood changes completely. Down the street come the boys, with laughter and shouting, glad that school has let out. The poem compares them to a flock of sheep, and they are hailing the deep snow. For a moment the poem is as happy as they are.

And the boys pass too

Then they hasten past the old woman, and not one of them offers a helping hand. That is the hardest line in the poem. The boys are not cruel. They are delighted, busy and in a hurry. Most unkindness looks exactly like this from the inside.

Why she cannot move

The poem explains her stillness. She is meek and timid, and afraid to stir, in case the carriage wheels or the horses’ feet should knock her down on the slippery street. The word lest carries that fear. Moving might kill her, and staying leaves her stuck.

One of the troop

At last one of the merry troop arrives, and the poem makes a point of saying which one: the gayest lad of the whole group. Not the quiet boy, not the serious one. The boy having the best time is the boy who stops.

How he offers

He pauses beside her and whispers low. Then he offers to help her across, if she wishes to go. Two details are worth keeping. He whispers, so he does not make a show of it. And he asks, instead of taking her arm, which leaves the choice with her.

The crossing

She places her aged hand on his strong young arm. He guides her trembling feet along, without hurt or harm, and the poem says he is proud that his own feet are firm and strong. The pride is not boasting. It is the feeling of having something useful and using it.

Back to his friends

Then he goes back to his friends, his young heart happy and well content. The reward arrives at once and costs nothing. He has not been thanked by a crowd or praised by a teacher, and the poem does not need either.

What he says to the boys

His explanation is the heart of the poem. She is somebody’s mother, he tells them, for all that she is aged and poor and slow. He hopes some fellow will lend a hand to help his own mother, if she is ever poor and old and grey when her own boy is far away.

The prayer that night

The poem ends in her home that night. Somebody’s mother bows her head and prays for the noble boy, calling him somebody’s son and somebody’s pride. The two phrases meet. He called her somebody’s mother; she calls him somebody’s son.

Scenario:

A Class 6 student dropped a box of chalk and charts outside the staff room at the end of the day. The corridor was full. Two classes went past him on their way to the gate, and several students stepped round the charts without slowing down. One boy at the back of the second group stopped, knelt, and started gathering the chalk. Three more stopped when they saw him. The whole thing took less than a minute, and the first boy said afterwards that he had only stopped because he had dropped a tray himself the week before.

Analysis:

This is the poem with chalk instead of snow. The corridor was crowded, exactly as the street was. A crowd is not the same thing as help. Nobody who stepped round the charts was being cruel; they were going home. The boy adds what the poem’s helper adds. He had put himself in the other person’s place, because the same thing had happened to him. Notice the detail about the three who joined in. One person stopping changes what the others treat as normal. That is why the poem tells us the helper was an ordinary member of the troop.

Activity:

Think of a crowded place you pass through daily. Write two things that often need doing there and nobody does.

Title:

One minute, thirty-six lines

Safety:

Write about an ordinary kindness, not a private or upsetting event.

What You Notice:

The detail that makes it real is usually small and physical, like a hand on an arm or snow on a street.

Mary Dow Brine was an American writer of the 1870s. The poem comes from a time of horse-drawn carriages, which is why the woman fears wheels and hooves rather than cars.

Crossing a street was genuinely dangerous then. Carriages did not stop for walkers, there were no signals, and a slip on packed snow could be fatal.

Nothing in the poem tells us the woman’s name, her home or her family. She is given one description, repeated twice: somebody’s mother.

The order of events — Woman, crowd, boys, one boy, cross, prayer — The woman stands; the throng passes; the boys hasten by; one stops; he guides her across; she prays that night.

The three words for the woman — Old, ragged, grey — The poem’s first line, and the three things a passer-by could see without stopping.

The shape on the page

Look at the poem before reading it closely. The lines come in pairs, and each pair rhymes. A pair of lines like that is called a couplet, and this poem is built entirely out of them. The shape is as plain as the story, which is a choice rather than an accident. A simple kindness told in a complicated form would sound untrue, and this poet knew it.

Writing the rhyme scheme

Give the first line the letter A. The second rhymes with it, so it is A too. The third line brings a new sound, so it is B, and the fourth rhymes with the third. That gives AABB, which is what rhyming couplets always give. Grey with day, snow with slow, shout with out.

What the couplet does for the poem

Two effects. It keeps the rhythm steady, like footsteps, which suits a poem about walking across a street. And it finishes a thought every two lines, so the story moves forward in small definite steps rather than long winding sentences.

The simile

A simile compares two things using like or as. Here the boys come down the street like a flock of sheep. The comparison is doing real work. Sheep move in a mass, all together, without any one of them deciding anything, which is exactly how the group passes the old woman.

Why that simile fits the meaning

If the boys are a flock, then the boy who stops has stepped out of the flock. The poem never says so directly. It gives you the comparison early and lets you feel the difference later, when one of the merry troop pauses while the rest hurry on.

Alliteration

This device repeats a sound at the start of nearby words. The poem has several: firm and strong, slippery street, somebody’s son. The effect is small and useful. Repeated sounds hold a phrase together and make it easier to remember, which is why they turn up in the lines the poem wants you to keep.

Repetition

The phrase somebody’s mother appears twice in the poem and once in its title. Repetition is a device, not laziness. Said once, the phrase is an observation. Said again, it becomes the lesson of the poem, and the prayer at the end turns it round into somebody’s son.

Imagery

This word covers language that lets you see, hear or feel something. The poem is full of it: a street wet with snow, snow piled white and deep, an aged hand on a young arm. You could draw almost every line, and that is how a short poem makes a stranger feel real.

The central contrast

The poem sets trembling feet against feet that are firm and strong. One pair cannot cross a slippery street and the other could run across it. Putting them in the same couplet explains the whole event: help is simply strength lent to weakness for a minute.

More contrasts, once you look

There are others. Aged and slow against young and glad. A whole troop against one boy. A crowd that walks on against a hand that is offered. Even the ending is a contrast: he goes back to laughter, and she goes home to a quiet prayer.

The theme

The theme is the idea underneath the story, and here it is kindness and empathy. Empathy is the part worth naming. The boy does not only feel sorry for the woman; he imagines his own mother in her place, which is a different and harder thing.

The tone

A poem’s tone is its attitude. This one is sympathetic and hopeful rather than angry. It would have been easy to write the same story as a complaint about a selfish crowd. Instead the crowd is described and left, and the poem spends its energy on the boy and the prayer.

Why the title works

The title is three words from the middle of the poem, and it names nobody. That is the point. Calling her somebody’s mother tells you that she belongs to a family you cannot see. It also invites you to do what the boy does, and put your own mother in her place.

What to carry out of this topic

A couplet is a rhyming pair, and the scheme is AABB. The simile is the flock of sheep. The contrast is trembling against firm. The repetition is somebody’s mother, answered by somebody’s son. The theme is kindness and empathy, and the tone is sympathetic and hopeful.

Scenario:

Two students wrote up the same event for the school magazine. A puppy had fallen into a drain near the gate, and a Class 8 girl had climbed down and lifted it out. The first report spent most of its length on the people who had walked past all morning. It called them heartless. The second described the drain, the puppy and the girl. It mentioned the passers-by in one line, and ended with the puppy asleep in the office. The editor chose the second and said it was the kinder piece of writing.

Analysis:

The editor is making a point about tone. This poem makes the same one. Both reports hold the same facts. The crowd is in each of them. The first spends its energy on blame. That leaves the reader angry and the puppy almost forgotten. The second gives the crowd one line and spends the rest on what was done. That is how the poem handles the throng and the hurrying boys. A hopeful tone does not pretend that nobody failed. The failure is recorded in both cases. What differs is where the writing chooses to look.

Activity:

Take any news story about a rescue and rewrite its opening in two tones: angry, then hopeful.

Title:

Couplets of your own

Safety:

Keep the people in your lines unnamed, as the poem does.

What You Notice:

Choosing an easy rhyming word at the end of the first line makes the second line much easier to write.

Rhyming couplets were the usual shape for story poems in English for centuries, because a pair of lines is easy to remember and easy to read aloud.

A simile and a metaphor do the same job and differ by one word. Calling the boys a flock of sheep would be a metaphor; saying they came like a flock of sheep is a simile.

The exercise asks you to complete an analogy, which is a comparison of relationships rather than of things: cold is to winter as heat is to summer.

The four devices to look for — C-S-C-R: Couplet, Simile, Contrast, Repetition — The couplet is the shape, the simile is the comparison, the contrast carries the meaning, and the repetition carries the title.

Telling a simile from a metaphor — Like or as means simile — Like a flock of sheep has the word like in it, so it is a simile. Without the word it would be a metaphor.

One word, four senses

The chapter opens with a dictionary question. Ragged can mean four things, and you have to pick the one the poem needs. Of clothes, it means old and torn, with shabby as its synonym. It can describe an outline that is not even, as in a ragged coastline. It can mean not smooth or controlled, as in ragged breathing. And informally it can mean very tired after effort.

Which sense the poem needs

The woman was old and ragged and grey, so the word is describing her clothes. That is the first sense: worn and torn. Notice how much it adds in one word. Without it she is simply old; with it she is old and poor, and a reader who knows that reads the rest of the poem differently.

How to choose a sense

Ask what the word is attached to. A coast cannot be shabby and breathing cannot be torn. The sentence always narrows the choice, and a dictionary lists the senses in order of use rather than in order of importance, so the first one is not automatically the right one.

Antonyms from the poem

An antonym is a word of opposite meaning. The grid exercise asks for six: fragile is the opposite of firm, bold of meek, sad of merry, cruel of kind, peaceful of anxious, and straight of bent. Each of the six original words is used of somebody in this poem.

Why antonyms are worth collecting

Because they sharpen the word you started with. Knowing that the opposite of anxious is peaceful tells you that anxious is about the mind rather than the body. Knowing that the opposite of firm is fragile tells you firm is about strength and not about position.

Six words, six situations

The matching exercise takes six words from the poem and asks where each belongs. Students who worked quickly to finish a project hastened. People who were saved because they listened to advice heeded it. A baby who moves slightly in a cradle stirs.

The other three

We ought to give our backing to those in need, which is to lend. Boxes kept in a heap have been piled. And people who came forward to help when we were in need offered. Every one of those words appears in the poem, doing the same work in a different setting.

An idiom

The poem uses the phrase lend a hand, which means to help somebody. Nobody lends anything, and no hand changes owner. That is what makes it an idiom: a set phrase whose meaning cannot be built out of its words. English has a whole family of them built on hand.

Three idioms about doing

To lend a hand is to help. To work hand in hand is to work together, usually closely and over time. And to try your hand at something is to attempt something new, with no promise that you will be any good at it.

Three idioms about freedom, praise and trouble

To give somebody a free hand is to allow them to do something with full freedom. To give somebody a big hand is to applaud them. And if a thing gets out of hand, it has become difficult to control. Add having your hands full, which means being very busy.

An analogy

An analogy compares relationships. Cold is to winter what heat is to summer: in each pair the first word is the weather the second season brings. The exercise asks you to finish five of them using words from the poem.

Working through the analogies

Cold goes with winter. Hurt goes with harm, as old goes with aged, because each pair is a pair of near-synonyms. Whispered is to shouted as humble is to proud, because each pair is opposites. Eyes go with glance as legs go with walk. And densely packed people make a throng.

Lest

This conjunction marks something you are trying to prevent. She was afraid to stir, lest the wheels or the hooves should crowd her down. Replace it with just in case and the sense survives: she stayed still just in case she was knocked over.

Three ways to say -ed

The speaking exercise sorts eight words from the poem by their final sound. Waited, heeded and guided add an extra syllable, so the ending sounds like id. Offered, whispered and paused end in a d or z sound with no extra syllable. Ragged and aged are the odd pair, because here they are adjectives and keep the older two-syllable sound.

What to carry out of this topic

Four senses of ragged, with the clothing one for the poem. Six antonyms. Six words matched to situations. Six idioms built on hand. The habit of asking what links the first pair of an analogy. And lest, which you can always test by swapping in just in case.

Scenario:

A class was asked to use the word ragged in a sentence about a mountain path. Four students looked it up and wrote four different sentences. One wrote that the path was ragged because it was old and torn. Another wrote that the path had a ragged edge where the rocks broke off. A third wrote that the walkers were ragged by the top of the climb. The fourth wrote that the walkers’ breathing had turned ragged. The teacher marked three of the four correct and asked the class to work out which one was wrong, and why.

Analysis:

The wrong sentence is the first, and the reason is the same one this chapter teaches. Old and torn is the clothing sense, and a path is not cloth. The other three each use a sense that fits what the word is attached to: an edge can be uneven, a walker can be worn out, and breathing can be unsmooth. Notice that all four students had the dictionary open. Looking a word up is only the first half of the job; the second half is checking the sense against the thing you are describing.

Activity:

Look up a word with several senses, such as light or fine, and write one correct sentence for each sense.

Title:

Six idioms in six sentences

Safety:

No safety concerns. Keep the sentences about ordinary days rather than real arguments.

What You Notice:

A sentence that makes the meaning guessable is usually one with a clear situation in it.

The word shabby is the usual synonym for ragged clothes, and it came into English from a word for a scab, which is how a worn and patchy look got its name.

Idioms built on parts of the body are common in every language, because a listener always has the body to picture: a free hand, an open ear, a cold shoulder.

Lest is one of the few English conjunctions that still takes an old-fashioned verb form, which is why it sounds formal: lest she fall, rather than lest she falls.

The four meanings of ragged — Clothes, coastline, breathing, worn out — Torn clothes; an uneven edge such as a coastline; something not smooth, like breathing; and, informally, very tired.

The hand idioms — Help, try, free, big, together, full — Lend a hand to help; try your hand at something new; a free hand for full freedom; a big hand for applause; hand in hand for working together; hands full for being busy.