Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
First-person narration from the perspective of an omniscient speaker
Form and Meter
It is a dramatic monligue that is somewhat iambic with an anapestic rhythm.
Metaphors and Similes
The “wild thing” is used as a metaphor to describe any being that has a limited intellectual capacity and only depends on its animalistic instincts to survive.
Alliteration and Assonance
“A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough”
Alliteration with consonants /b/ and /d/
Assonance with vowel /o/
Irony
Though a human being is intelligent and self-aware they fall victim to self-pity, unlike a beast or animal that is oblivious to it.
Genre
Dramatic
Setting
The poem is set in the speaker’s thoughts.
Tone
Poignant and Inspirational
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: The unnamed speaker contemplating the concept of self-pity in humans and non-humans. Antagonist: Self-pity.
Major Conflict
The speaker seeks to highlight that humans frequently exhibit self-pity while non-human beings endure and never lament on the hardships.
Climax
The climax arrives when the speaker mentions the dead bird that falls from a tree branch.
Foreshadowing
The second line foreshadows the impeding tragic fall that happens to a wild thing that has never felt sorry for itself.
Understatement
In the line about the dead bird, the speaker understates its death to emphasize the lack of self-pity in non-humans.
Allusions
The poem makes Biblical allusions to Jesus’ teachings on the helplessness of animals compared to humans yet they survive and have no self-pity.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“Sorry for itself” is a metonymy for self-pity.
Personification
The wild thing and the bird are personified to illustrate their lack of self-pity.
Hyperbole
N/A
Onomatopoeia
N/A
