Composition

This part of the study guide is dedicated to the inner and outer compositions of the poem “Warning to Parents” by Elizabeth Jennings and designed to help you understand how the form of the poem is linked to its content.

Outer composition

“Warning to Parents” is composed of five stanzas, four quatrains, and a final couplet. The poem “Warning to Parents” has fixed rhythm and rhyme schemes, a feature which is rather typical of Elizabeth Jennings’s writing style.

The quatrains follow the end rhyme scheme ABBA, also known as enclosed rhyme. This means that in the quatrains, each first line rhymes with the fourth and the ones in the middle rhyme together, like in the following example:

Save them from terror; do not let them see
The ghost behind the stairs, the hidden crime.
They will, no doubt, grow out of this in time
And be impervious as you and me. (p. 141, ll. 1-4)

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Inner composition

The inner composition of the poem follows closely the outer form. The title is quite straightforward, indicating the poem will be an apostrophe, an appeal to parents. However, the warning is not about protecting children from being exposed to cruelty and violence (as suggested by stanzas 1 and 2), but about being aware that parents cannot protect children from these aspects of life which are instinctual and cannot be avoided.

The first two stanzas mislead readers. They present what parents should protect their children of, such as “terror” (p. 141, l. 1), ghosts and crimes (p. 141, l. 2) or “things no child can understand” (p. 141, l. 9).

However, the third stanza finally reveals the speaker’s true warning. The reality is that children will, despite parents’ efforts, discover negative aspects of life. What is more, they will even enjoy acting violent:

When you discover how the child can gloat
On Belsen and on tortures – things remote (p. 142, ll. 2-3)

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