Since its publication in 1978, Ai's thirty-two-line dramatic monologue poem, "The Kid," has shocked and intrigued readers with its brutal subject of a murdered family. In the poem, the speaker, who identifies himself as a fourteen-year-old boy, methodically annihilates his family, consisting of his father, mother, sister, and their horses. On the surface, one could argue that the boy is triggered by an event that drives him crazy – perhaps his "old man" yelling at him to "help him join the team" (Ai 5) or his sister rubbing his “doll face against the mud” (1). However, there is no clear answer to the boy's mania that results in his killing spree, so the boy must not simply be crazy, but rather he eventually breaks free from the lifelong torments carried out by his family petty, abusive and undoubtedly homophobic. . Unlike madness, the evidence throughout the poem illuminates the juxtaposition between the boy's masculinity and femininity and the tension that exists between anything that is not properly within the bounds of his own gender. Through a psychoanalytic reading of the poem, it could be argued that the boy suffers from the Oedipal complex, in which he greatly admires his mother, identifies with her and, in a sense, wants to be her. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In the poem, the boy is overwhelmed by his identification with femininity and his contempt for the domineering male authority (his father), and the greater importance of this concept shows that if the true self is imprisoned , negative events will happen, which in the case of "The Kid" is the boy killing his entire family in order to escape their unacceptable and abusive environment. Throughout the text, the boy's Oedipal complex is linked to his sexuality, and for him to be free metaphorically and sexually; the boy must first kill his father. In the poem, the boy focuses on the father who yells at him, snaps and decides to kill him first with an iron bar which also serves as a phallic symbol. At the beginning of the second stanza, the boy's hatred of his father is emphasized: "I stand next to him, I wait, but he does not look up / and I squeeze the rod, I raise it, his skull splits” (12-13). The phrase “stand by his side” (12) implies that the boy wishes to be his father's equal, or sees himself as his father's equal. But his father "does not look up" (12), suggesting that his father does not view his son as his equal and generally does not seem to care about his child because he ignores him. When the boy realizes the inequality between him and his father, he becomes furious, forcing him to "squeeze the rod" (13), raise it and murder his father. For the boy, equality and acceptance are all he wants at this point in his life, but he knows it's something he will never get from his father, which puts him at risk. anger to the point of killing him. The boy wanted his father to look him in the eye before he killed him, he wanted him to know that his own son was killing him because of the mistreatment, abuse and inequality the boy was subjected to. also argue that the boy murdering his father gives easier access to the mother, as the father figure will no longer monitor or control their love, which strengthens the argument for the Oedipal complex throughout the work. In the poem, the boy loves and idolizes his mother, but he kills her because she could not stop him from abusing his father's violent masculinity. In the first stanza, there is a clear juxtaposition between positive connotations with the boy's mother and connotationsnegative with the boy's father: "The old man yells at me to help hitch the hitch, / but I keep walking around the truck hitting harder. , / until my mother called” (5-7). The old man who shouted for the boy has a much harsher and masculine connotation, while the mother who calls for the boy has a much softer and higher connotation. Additionally, the boy walking around the truck "hitting harder" (6) suggests that his father's voice makes him angry and causes him to perform gruff, masculine tasks like hitting a truck, a symbol of masculinity, with a iron bar, which is also a symbol of masculinity and a phallic symbol. However, the boy tries to reach out to his mother in her angry state: "I picked up a stone and threw it at the kitchen window, / but it didn't reach" (10-11). What is particularly interesting about these lines is that the boy picks up a stone, something that is considered a hard, rough, primitive and even masculine object, and throws it at the kitchen window, which is culturally associated to a feminine space. However, the rock "fails" (9), suggesting that the boy's attempts to reach his mother and seek comfort from his mother are unsuccessful, resulting in the boy feeling completely alienated in the family dynamic. Again, there is a tension between what would be considered feminine and what would be considered masculine. The boy is literally trying to reject or suppress the extreme masculine image his father forced him to adopt. Since the mother could not save the boy from his overbearing father, she must die too for the boy to be freed metaphorically and sexually. Unlike the death of the boy's father, the death of the mother is somehow merciful, it is less violent and seems less vengeful. The boy kills his mother by sending her “through the spine as she leans over him” (15). Hitting one's mother in the spine draws attention to the fact that she was soft when it came to interactions with her husband, that she was unable to challenge him, and that she had very probably been abused herself. Once the mother and father are dead, the boy drops the phallic iron bar and therefore drops his masculinity and his Oedipal complex. Ai shapes a tension and juxtaposition between appearance and reality by being concerned with extrinsic symbols and the construction of the boy's masculinity/femininity. . The poem's opening image depicts the boy's sister rubbing her "doll face in the mud" (1); this image provokes the contrast between the feminine beauty of the doll and the dirty and undoubtedly masculine mud which obstructs the beauty of the doll. Towards the end of the second stanza, the doll is mentioned again. When leaving the house, the boy puts on his father's best suit and, in his suitcase, he puts "his mother's satin nightgown / and my sister's doll" (28-29). The fact that the boy wears his father's best suit suggests that this is the image he wants the world to see, a masculine, well-dressed heterosexual man. Yet, much like the doll in the mud, the contents of the suitcase reveal her repressed femininity and sexuality as a whole. In her suitcase are two very feminine objects, the nightgown and the doll. The doll symbolizes both ideal female beauty, but also childhood, from which one could infer that the boy never had a proper or pleasant childhood, and now, at the age of fourteen, he is desperately trying to keep it. On the other, the mother's satin nightgown, a strong symbol of sexualized, adult and feminine beauty. Having these two contrasting objects stored in your suitcase.