Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The Father (Longfellow)
Form and Meter
Quatrains; Irregular trochaic trimeter
Metaphors and Similes
Metaphor:
-Longfellow uses a metaphor of a raid on his castle to describe the girls coming into his study and attacking him; he says he will hold them in the fortress of his heart until the walls crumble.
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration:
-"voices soft and sweet"
-"I have you fast in my fortress"
-"they are plotting and planning together"
Irony
-With the title of the poem being “The Children’s Hour” it would be an easy conclusion to make that the beneficiaries of such an hour would be the children. Indeed, the girls have a lovely, playful time with their father. It is the father, though, who ironically benefits most. He gets a respite from his work and gets to be fully present with his children. He senses the ephemerality of these moments and thus cherishes them all the more.
Genre
Poetry
Setting
A father's study in the evening; 19th century antebellum America
Tone
Loving, warm, playful, intimate
Protagonist and Antagonist
None
Major Conflict
The "conflict" of the poem is a lighthearted one: whether or not the father will play along with the silliness of his daughters when they rush into his study.
Climax
When the girls actually rush in and surround him after the build-up of whispering and plotting.
Foreshadowing
The sounds of feet and whispering give us the sense that there will be a rush of action to come; the father will be disturbed in his study.
Understatement
n/a
Allusions
-"Bishop Bingen in the Mouse Tower" refers to the Archbishop of Bingen, a cruel ruler who was supposedly eaten alive by mice in this tower on a small island outside the little German town.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Synecdoche:
-"old mustache" is the father
Personification
-"the night is beginning to lower"
Hyperbole
-"They seem to be everywhere"
-"And there will I keep you forever"
Onomatopoeia
-"rush"
-"whisper"
-"patter"
