"Edward" ~by Anonymous

This poem is structured as a mother and son speaking to each other. The speaker is clearly very upset about something which can be seen in the repetition of the word "O" at the beginning and end of many lines. The poem begins following a pattern of the mother asking the son what he has done. Each time the son responds with a lie until he finally admits that he killed his father. The mother reacts oddly to this news. One would expect her to be surprised or upset because her son just murdered her husband; however, she reacts by simply jumping into more questions. All of her questions are related to inheritance which reveals her motive. The last line came as a shock to me at the revelation that the mother encouraged her son to kill her husband. "The curse of hell from me shall ye bear, such counsels you gave to me, O." (line 56) In addition, the way the son speaks about his parents shows how he feels toward them. His calls his dad "my father dear" which shows that he cares about him. However, he refused to call his mother "my own mother dear" and only calls her "Mother, Mother;" this shows their distanced relationship.