Ballad Of Birmingham Theme Essay

Loss, pain, happiness. Three feelings that are not usually put together, but are portrayed in both the poem, “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall, and the memoir Upon the Head of the Goat by Aranka Siegal. In the very beginning both families are a happy bunch until an unexpected change in events turned their lives around drastically. Each piece also demonstrates that each family lost someone, things went downhill fast, and both mothers were put into a situation where they were helpless. The poem and memoir share a similar theme, which is: appreciate what you have before it is gone.

The loss of a family member is shown in the poem when it says, “Then lited out a shoe/ ‘O here’s the shoe my baby wore/ But, baby, where are

For example, in the poem it said “For when she heard the explosion/ Her eyes grew wet and wild/ She raced through the streets of Birmingham/ Calling for her child.”(Randall 25-28) This is an example of a sudden change of events, because in the poem, Mother had been smiling at the fact that her daughter was going to the church. But, then the explosion went off and as she ran through the streets “calling for her child” (Randall 28) she knew that things had gone horribly wrong. One second she is happily sending her child off to the church, the next she is running through the streets looking for her child because of the explosion from the church. In the memoir, it says “‘Take a good look, woman,’said the policeman with a sarcastic voice.‘I doubt you’ll ever see it again’ He motioned the driver to move on while he walked alongside.” (Siegal 152) This is an example of things going downhill, because Piri and her family lost their home in a matter of seconds to the Germans. The Davidovitz family had been living regularly to the best of their abilities, and then out of the blue the German police came and took them away to the