Finuala Dowling is a South African poet who read a news article about a doctor’s reaction to treating a raped baby, and felt compelled to write about it. Her poem “To the doctor who treated the raped baby and felt such despair” is her reaction to that incident.
In the poem the author speaks directly, and gratefully to a doctor who treats a baby who is the victim of a horrific crime. She thanks the...
Finuala Dowling is a South African poet who read a news article about a doctor’s reaction to treating a raped baby, and felt compelled to write about it. Her poem “To the doctor who treated the raped baby and felt such despair” is her reaction to that incident.
In the poem the author speaks directly, and gratefully to a doctor who treats a baby who is the victim of a horrific crime. She thanks the physician for his attempt to save the child.
I wrote as if I were speaking to the doctor in the first instance, but then also to all men who might be feeling ashamed to be men, to all parents, all South Africans.
In order to do this, she creates a dichotomy in the poem by describing how the doctor tends to the baby’s wounds in one line, while in other lines she details how, in more acceptable settings, children are being treated with love. The doctor stitches wounds at the hospital, while in a home, a baby is lovingly nursed to sleep. For each action the doctor takes to care for the child, a responsible adult provides the proper care to another baby.
that on the night in question
there was a light on in the hall
for a nervous little sleeper
and when the bleeding baby was admitted to your care
faraway a Karoo shepherd crooned a ramkietjie lullaby in the veld
In the final stanza, the doctor asks if a God exists because he is so distraught about the child’s ordeal. Yet, the speaker thanks the doctor, not only on her own behalf, but on behalf of society. She feels society can rest easy because people like the doctor will tend to something so wrong that it affects the speaker to her core.
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