Red Balloon

Red Balloon

In Red Balloon Abse talks about his beliefs in his religion which is Jewish. The poem talks about other peoples opinions on him because of his religion and the bullying that he it caused him. The structure of the poem is 10 stanza's, each with 4 lines in them.

The Red Balloon suggests a number of things for the poem:

• Vibrancy
• happiness
• Hope
•  freedom
•  innocence
• His Religious Beliefs about being a Jew 
• The red balloon could have a similarity to the girl in the red coat in Schindler's list

The Girl in the Red Coat

The girl in the red coat is the most obvious symbol in Schindler’s List, simply because her coat is the only color object, other than the Shabbat candles, presented in the main body of the film. To Schindler, she represents the innocence of the Jews being slaughtered. He sees her from high atop a hill and is riveted by her, almost to the exclusion of the surrounding violence. The moment Schindler catches sight of her marks the moment when he is forced to confront the horror of Jewish life during the Holocaust and his own hand in that horror. The little girl also has a greater social significance. Her red coat suggests the “red flag” the Jews waved at the Allied powers during World War II as a cry for help. The little girl walks through the violence of the evacuation as if she can’t see it, ignoring the carnage around her. Her oblivion mirrors the inaction of the Allied powers in helping to save the Jews. Schindler later spots her in a pile of exhumed dead bodies, and her death symbolizes the death of innocence.  (http://www.sparknotes.com/film/schindlerslist/themes.html)

The poem 

In the first couple of stanza's in the poem, Abse talks about the balloons journey over different places, until " it landed where I stood". At first Abse is confused about the balloon and therefore confused about his religion.  In the third stanza Abse says that " It was my same and it was my joy", this suggests that Abse is told to be a christian like his friends but he wants to be a Jew like his family.  It also suggests that Abse feels humiliated by people by being a Jew, however he really enjoy's being a Jew. The sixth stanza talks about Abse's best friend, who is christian and is saying the being a Jew is wrong and evil to God. The seventh stanza talks about being "circumcised" which is to purify spiritually, this means that he wants to purify Abse of Judaism.

The eighth stanza talks about boys trying to destroy his religion, however Abse is fighting for his religion and will not stop being a Jew just because people are threatening him. The last two stanza;s are about the boys destroying Abse's belief in being a Jew because he is different from them.          

Comparisons  to Larkin:

• Faith Healing because it also talks about religion.