Whipping Boy
The Whipping In Robert Hayden’s “The Whipping”, the poet introduces the theme of child abuse. ... Hayden’s first stanza begins with “The old woman across the way/ is whipping the boy again”. This line suggests to the reader that this whipping is not unusual. ... This boy is trying to escape, by running in fear, as he is thrown and beaten in the garden. ... “She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling/ boy till the stick breaks in her hand”. The reader gains a great deal of sympathy for the boy, as Hayden describes the boy screaming and running in circles trying to get away. ... The boy’s tears is a flashback of the narrator’s memories when he was once beaten as a child.