OVERVIEW OF THE POEM

A crowd has caught a woman (Line 2: ‘We’ve got her! Here she is’). The persona implies to the reader that the woman is not decent (Line 6: ‘A decent-looking woman, you’d have said,’// Lines 11-14: And not the first time//By any means//She’d felt men’s hands//Greedy over her body’). The persona states that the woman has experienced men’s hands on her body before, but this crowd’s hands were virtuous (Lines 15-16: ‘But ours were virtuous,//Of course’).

He also makes a proviso that if this crowd bruises her, it cannot be compared to what she has experienced before. The persona also speaks about a last assault and battery to come. He justifies this last assault by calling it justice, and it is justice that feels not only right, but good. The crowd’s ‘justice’ is placed on hold by the interruption of a preacher, who stops to talk to the lady.

He squats on the ground and writes something that the crowd cannot see. Essentially, the preacher judges them, thereby allowing the lady to also judge the crowd, leading to the crowd inevitably judging itself. The crowd walks away from the lady, still holding stones [which can be seen as a metaphor for judgments that can be thrown another day.

LITERARY DEVICES

SARCASM

The persona is making the point that the lady was in fact NOT decent looking.

PERSONIFICATION

This device is particularly effective because the word ‘kisses’ is used. Kiss implies something pleasant, but it is actually utilized to emphasize something painful that has happened to the lady; she was stoned.

PUN

Title: The title of the poem is itself a pun on two levels. A stone’s throw is used by many people in the Caribbean to describe a close distance. eg. “She lives a stone’s throw away”. The other use of the title is to highlight the content of the poem. It is a figurative stoning, or judging, of a woman.

ALLUSION (biblical)

The content of the poem alludes to the story of Mary Magdalene in the Christian Bible. See John 8 v 5-7.

CONTRAST

Lines 13-15: These lines show that the men who were ‘holding stones’ believe they are more morally upright than the other men with whom the woman associates.

IRONY

One would think that men with ‘virtuous’ hands would have only pure thoughts, but these men intend to stone the woman , who seems utterly defenseless. Also, images of cruelty are used, such as ‘bruised’, ‘kisses of stone’, ‘battery’ and ‘frigid rape’.

TONE

The tone of the poem is mixed. At times it is almost braggadocious, then it becomes sarcastic, moving to scornful.

THEMES

• Discrimination- The poor treatment the persona receives by the men in the poem as a result of her profession.

• Religion

• Appearance vs Reality

• Hypocrisy

• Oppression

• Power and Powerlessness

A group of men caught a woman who seems to have committed some serious offence or violation punishable by stoning to death. The poem does not tell us what it is, but the several lines and references suggest it is something of a sexual nature and the men are about to carry out their judgment. They are, however, interrupted by a stranger who causes them to take a good look at themselves, have doubts and abort their mission. The final stanza suggests that, though prevented on this occasion, the men have not changed or repented and are prepared to do the same thing again.

The poet uses the technique of narrative point-of-view. A great deal is gained by having the story told in the poem by one of the men eager to stone the woman. Several lines in the poem tell us about him and his companions who take a very perverse, greedy, sexual pleasure out of their mission – “we roughed her up”; “men’s hands/Greedy over her body”; “our fingers bruised/Her shuddering skin”; “it tastes so good”, and “Given the urge”. The poem uses several ironies. The men are self-righteous, ready to condemn others while they themselves are guilty. They describe their own greedy hands as “ours were virtuous, /Of course”; their violation of the woman as being “of right”, claiming “Justice must be done.”

ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS

This poem is a very closely and cleverly crafted dramatisation. It illustrates the way poetry uses implicit dramatisation to reveal and comment on issues. This is done without any specific reference, without explanations. It shows something without telling it. There are no explicit details, but the dramatic nature of the narrative in the poem directs the minds, the thinking, of the readers to the issues the poem wants to focus. There is a speaking voice – a man who narrates an event in his own words, providing details of the incident while unintentionally revealing much about himself and his companions.

A group of men caught a woman who seems to have committed some serious offence or violation punishable by stoning to death. The poem does not tell us what it is, but the several lines and references suggest it is something of a sexual nature and the men are about to carry out their judgment. They are, however, interrupted by a stranger who causes them to take a good look at themselves, have doubts and abort their mission. The final stanza suggests that, though prevented on this occasion, the men have not changed or repented and are prepared to do the same thing again.

While the poem does not tell explicitly what was happening we are not really left guessing, because the poem is obviously using a biblical allusion. It retells a story from the Bible (John 8; 3 – 11), well known even to many who might not be Christians or who might not know the Bible. A woman was caught in adultery, punishable at that time, according to the law, by stoning to death. She was taken to Jesus, who was urged to pronounce the expected sentence of death. But Jesus spoke quietly to her while writing in the dust on the ground and, instead, challenged her accusers, uttering the oft quoted words “let him that is without sin cast the first stone.” This effectively halted them and the woman was spared.

The poet uses the technique of narrative point-of-view. A great deal is gained by having the story told in the poem by one of the men eager to stone the woman. Several lines in the poem tell us about him and his companions who take a very perverse, greedy, sexual pleasure out of their mission – “we roughed her up”; “men’s hands/Greedy over her body”; “our fingers bruised/Her shuddering skin”; “it tastes so good”, and “Given the urge”. The poem uses several ironies. The men are self-righteous, ready to condemn others while they themselves are guilty. They describe their own greedy hands as “ours were virtuous, /Of course”; their violation of the woman as being “of right”, claiming “Justice must be done.”

Another important technique used by Mitchell is the central metaphor or central imagery of the poem, which has to do with sex and violence. The woman is roughed up, indecently handled by her captors who are about to stone her; note the startling chilling crude imagery (typical of Mitchell) of sexual violence in the fourth stanza especially, but running through the poem. Note also the other sexual innuendos elsewhere. Note as well the use of almost throw-away understatements, such as those remarks in brackets which come from the dramatisation – the conversational tone of the narrative which reveals the speaker’s thoughts and biased, prejudicial, judgmental attitudes.

Then in stanza six the poet pinpoints that people are quick to pass judgment upon others but hardly ever look at themselves. Probably for the first time these men are forced to do that and are quite uncomfortable and wrong-footed. The final stanza, though, shows that they are unrepentant, unchanged. This brings to mind a powerful statement of the poem – that even in modern times, long after biblical days our society has not changed because men behave the same way.

The poem’s title is significant in this respect. The poem is about the throwing of stones, but it also refers to the troubling issue of violence against women; the occasional cases of women condemned to death by stoning in extreme Islamist states according to Sharia law. What took place in the Bible all those years ago is still with us. It is only “a stone’s throw” away.