"Little Green" Analysis

“Little Green” Analysis

Amelia Maloney

2/7/12

Poetry of Song G

            Through the sorrowful telling of giving her child up for adoption in “Little Green”, Joni Mitchell utilizes inclusive point of view, detailed characterization, soft imagery, and in order to convey the message that life will be happy, but “sometimes there’ll be sorrow.”

 A tool that the artist uses is point of view.  There are views of the mother, the father, and the child, which are all very important.  The point of view from the mother, “You’re sad and you’re sorry, but you’re not ashamed” describes how she is upset about having to give her child away, but she knows that she is doing the right thing, saving her child from suffering.  The whole song is about the child being born and how the mother wants a better life for her child.  The mother wants her child to be whatever she wants to be “Little Green, be a gypsy dancer.”  The point of view from the father is important as well because he isn’t a part of the child’s life after she is born “He went to California/Hearing that everything’s warmer there.”  This shows that the father is afraid of being a part of her life or that he has no interest in having anything to do with her.  Point of view helps tell the story of the song and makes the story more interesting and vivid.

Another device that the singer uses in order to show the universal idea of the song is characterization.  The song is characterizing the mother, father, and the child, all of them being detailed and helping tell the story behind the song.  The mother is characterized as being afraid about having her child being giving up for adoption, but she is okay with that decision, “You’re sad and you’re sorry, but you’re not ashamed.”  The father of the child is shown as being uninterested in his child’s life and he proves this by leaving, “He went to California, / Hearing everything’s warmer there.”  The child’s characterization is the most important part of the song because she helps the story come together.  The mother wanted her to be whatever she wanted to be “Little Green, be a gypsy dancer.”  Characterization is the most useful tool that the singer uses because it helps show what the subjects of the song are like and also highlights their parts of the story.

The singer paints a picture of the story by using imagery.  The father of the child leaves after she is born because he is uninterested “He went to California” paints a picture for the listener of a man going off from his family because he is scared and confused.  The imagery used in the song can be characterized as bittersweet because she uses both happy imagery, “There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes.”  There is also seasonal imagery being used in order to make the song softer and interesting, “Like the color when the spring is born.”  The singer uses imagery in order to display what is going on in the story and to make the listener more interested.  Imagery is the most important part of the song because it basically tells the story of the lives of the mother, father, and child. 

This was an interesting and detailed song because of the devices that the singer uses.  All of them tell the story and helps the reader understand what the mother went through.  The devices also help convey the universal idea that life will be happy, but that there will also be times of sorrow and sadness.