Textuality » 3A Interacting
The ballad is arranged into ten four-line stanzas. Characters are a mother and her son. The ballad is arranged into dialogue form between a patronizing son and his mother. The son uses the imperative that is the language to give orders. The mother calls her son handsome and uses the possessive my.
The poem is a folk ballad; right from the title the reader understands that Randal is the main character and belongs to aristocracy therefore the intelligent reader expects something typical of the life of reach people, probably some rituals of the aristocratic class.
The poem start with the mother's voice: she is worried; she wants to know when her son has been. In the first two lines the intelligent reader can immediately understand the relationship of affection of the mother towards her son. The composer uses the repetition of the possessive adjective "my" before "son" and "man". In addition the adjectives "handsome" and "young" both underline the idea the mother has of her son.
Immediately afterwards the reader understands that Lord Randal has a patronizing attitude towards his mother: he gives orders and expects the mother to obey.