Dec 21, 2009

Bedtime Story | Style

A free-verse parody of a bedtime story, “Bedtime Story” is composed of thirteen quatrains of verse which allegorically satirize European attitudes towards colonialism and humanity’s relationship to the natural world.

Parodies imitate features of literary works or literary genres, often treating “lowlier” subjects than the work or genre they imitate. MacBeth signals a conventional bedtime story by beginning “Long long ago …,” but then launches into a story which can be read as an allegory of Britain’s own colonial history. The “last man” is a type,...