OH WHERE HA' YOU BEEN, LORD RANDAL, MY SON

From the title the reader may expect the poem to be about a rich man, as it is suggested from the use of Lord, and his mother, as it can be understood from “son”.

It is a poem because the text is arranged into 10 quatrains with a similar pattern and it is a dialogue between a mother and his son. This structure is used to help people memorize the poem in a easier way.

The poem is a conversation between Lord Randal and his mother, who is curious to know where his son has been and who wants to protect him from everything. Just from the first stanza the reader can make an idea about the two characters: the mother is taking care of her son and she is fond of him, while the lord is annoyed by his mother questions, he gives orders to her and thinks only about himself.

In the first stanza there is an anaphor between lines 1-2 and an incremental repetition of the same question: this organisation will be used in all the other stanzas.

There is an alliteration of the letter “m” in line 3 and “h” in lines 1-2.

Moreover there are rhyming couplets in lines 1-2 with “son” and “man” and in lines 3-4 with “soon” and “doon”.

All this sound decisions are taken from the poet to create a musically effect to make the text suitable to be danced. In this way people of Middle Ages could also memorize the text faster.

In the second stanza Lord Randal continues to answer to his mother's questions in an arrogant and annoyed way and this is reinforced by the verbs in Imperative.

The distance between the two characters become larger as the poem moves one.

Furthermore, even if the man is talking about his true-love, he doesn't express his emotions or his feelings and this confirms the reader's ideas about the character.

In the third stanza the word-order is always the same used in the previous stanzas and the Lord uses the same words to reinforce his needs.

In the following stanzas the structure is always the same and Lord Randal's emotions are never expressed, reinforcing the reader's idea of a man without feelings and selfish, that thinks only about his needs and who treats his mother with superiority.

Indeed in the sixth stanza, when he founds out he's been poisoned, he doesn't communicate fear for death as, on the other hand, does his mother.

In the last four stanzas the dialogue changes topic and the two characters discuss about the lord's will. Even if the man is dying, he doesn’t change tone and he continues to give orders as it caan be seen by the use of Imperative verbs.

This poem focuses on how the life of a Lord was during the Middle Ages and the woman's role in the society.

If the man receive all the riches and can give orders to the others, the woman is only a servant that has to do everything the man says without complaining.