Upon reading this poem one notices that the title ‘To the doctor who treated the raped baby and who felt such despair’ is long. Most titles of poems are short and get straight to the point. The title itself is unusual in that it hooks the reader causing curiosity of a morbid title thus the reader reads the poem. ‘Raped baby’ is in all its sense a shock to the reader. It describes a horrific and monstrous crime. An unusual title that captivates and intrigues the reader. The title is effective to the contents of the poem. Starting the title with ‘To the doctor’ sounds like Dowling is writing an open or personal letter to this important figure. The poet thanks this doctor for his services by ‘we all slept in trust that you would do what you did’. Question 2 : The expression ‘on behalf of us all’ seems to have at least a couple of effects on this poem. The phrase tends to have a connotation of gratitude. This reading is supported by the end of the poem where the speaker and the others are used in pronouns ‘we all slept in trust’. The speaker is expression gratitude because ‘we’ are able to sleep soundly …show more content…
This setting shows the harsh reality that people in the world are the epitome of evil and victimize the innocent. ‘When the bleeding baby was admitted to your care faraway a Karoo Sheppard crooned a ramkietjie lullaby in the veld’ shows the reader that far away from the operating room another baby was being cared for and sung to. As the raped baby is being ‘stitched’ at home another baby is being read ‘another chapter of a favourite story’. The effect of these contrasting settings is to support the overall idea that humanity is generally kind and compassionate and that one crime against a child is not indicative of the whole World. To the doctor people seem evil at this point but hopefully he will realise that most people are