Cycles throughout the poem: The youth with broomy stumps
Throughout this poem Swift gives us a series of life cycles. The best example of this would be the words youth with broomy stumps.
Youth is the starting point of life and the beginning of Swift’s cycle and broomy makes us think of a broom, which is one of the most common tools used for labor. Stumps could refer to small broom handles that the children are holding however, these stumps can be looked at from a different perspective. Most of the time, children have short limbs that somewhat resemble stumps. Here, Swift could be implying that the stumps are the children’s limbs. If theses limbs are broomy then maybe that means these arms and legs are meant for labor. The stumps that the children have will eventually evolve into long adult limbs that will probably be used for laboring. The broomy stumps could be Swift’s way of describing the children’s small laboring limbs. The youth with broomy stumps = the children with limbs that will inevitably be used for labor in the near future. Here the cycle is emphasized because these children will eventually become laborers. Once they have children, the new youth will be waiting to turn into laborers and so on.
Throughout this poem Swift gives us a series of life cycles. The best example of this would be the words youth with broomy stumps.
Youth is the starting point of life and the beginning of Swift’s cycle and broomy makes us think of a broom, which is one of the most common tools used for labor. Stumps could refer to small broom handles that the children are holding however, these stumps can be looked at from a different perspective. Most of the time, children have short limbs that somewhat resemble stumps. Here, Swift could be implying that the stumps are the children’s limbs. If theses limbs are broomy then maybe that means these arms and legs are meant for labor. The stumps that the children have will eventually evolve into long adult limbs that will probably be used for laboring. The broomy stumps could be Swift’s way of describing the children’s small laboring limbs. The youth with broomy stumps = the children with limbs that will inevitably be used for labor in the near future. Here the cycle is emphasized because these children will eventually become laborers. Once they have children, the new youth will be waiting to turn into laborers and so on.
Children are born——→They become laborers——→Their children are born——→They become laborers—–→and the cycle continues.
This cycle can be seen again with the smallcoal man and the chimney sweeps. The smallcoal man sells coal, makes money, and then creates more work for the children. This represents another continuous cycle that seems difficult to break. Cycles run our lives and they seem to have a strong presence in Swift’s poem.
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