People's Behavior in Elma Mitchell's Poems

The poem A Stone’s Throw' is about some self-righteous men who caught a prostitute and roughed her up. These men believed that they were not doing anything wrong as it was not the first time she was feeling a man's hands on her body as shown by the sentence, 'she’s felt men’s hands, greedy over her body, but ours were virtuous, of course'.

The prostitute who was Mary Magdalene was dead scared because she knew the fate she was about to have as she was assaulted.

But a ’preacher, god merchant, ’ also known as Jesus squatted down to her level and writing in the dust and looked at her. Then he turned to the men that’s when their eyes were on themselves and they saw that they weren’t as sinless as they had thought and so they walked away still holding their stones promising to throw at her another day if given the urge to do so.

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The speaker hates the woman as he believes that what she is doing is a sin and she must pay the price of her sins by facing the men's brutality. The speaker continuously justified his brutality towards the woman by saying ' For justice must be done specially when it tastes so good'. The speaker would enjoy brutalizing and stoning the woman because he claims that what she does is an abomination and only these women should be punished for their actions.

The speaker has a judgmental and condescending attitude towards the woman and he did not feel guilty for his actions.

In A stone's Throw' there is an allusion to the Bible. In a chapter in the Bible Jesus stopped a group of men from stoning a prostitute. This allusion depicts the cruel and unfair treatment towards the women. The women in the Bible and the poem were to be stoned because of what they did, while the men did not face any consequences and they themselves have participated in these unforgivable' actions. The poem ' The Woman Who Speaks To The Man Who Has Employed Her Son' is about a single mother who loves her son very much. She found that she was with child when she started to experience morning sickness. She placed all her hopes and dreams on her child and raised him as best as she could without a father. This woman filled the place of both the mother and father of her child and felt that there was no imit to where he would reach in life. But, the boy grew up to work for a criminal who gives him weapons and allow him to be at deaths door.

The son beloved that his employer is like a father to him but the mother does not believe that, as, which father would purposefully endanger their child. The woman thinks that her son will die sooner rather than later and goes out to but her black cloth for the funeral and says psalms for her son, while, rebuking his employer. She feels as if her son has betrayed her. The speaker in 'The Woman Who Speaks To The Man Who Has Employed Her Son' has a positive, respectful and an admiring attitude towards the mother. The speaker is sympathetic towards the mother because her beloved son chose a life of crime and disregarded his mother's warnings, hopes and dreams. The speaker thus feels compassion for the woman due to her circumstances. In the poem, there is an allusion to the Bible.

The poem speaks about Judas Iscariot's mother, the mother of the disciple that betrayed Jesus and Absalom, the son of David who betrayed his father. The mother thogh deeply defrayed by her son, stills loves him and prayed psalms for him, this gives reference to the Bible as Judas betrayed Jesus but Jesus still forgave and loved Judas. In the poem the son did not listen to his mother and will soon face death because of it, just like in the Bible where Absalom died because he rebelled against his father and died in the rebellion. Absalom betrayed his father just as how the son, in the poem, betrayed his mother.