On Her Brother, Essay Example

The poem is based on Al-Khansa describing her brother Sakhr. The poem is an illustration of how she admired her brother and how he was revered by his peers. Her emotions in the poem range from resentment to pride. She demonstrates how she is unhappy in the nature of his brother’s behavior, yet proud of the man that he had become. Al-Khansa has mixed feelings in the poem but the main emotion she has is pride, as she is proud of the man that her brother had become.

The beginning of the poem illustrates her resentment for her brother; ‘My brother was not a camel driver’, the line demonstrates how she resented the fact that her brother did not like manual labor. It is safe to assume that it is a task, which men carried out and her brother was not into the activity, which makes Al-Khansa unhappy that her brother would not be part of the tasks carried out by men.

‘He ran faster than any of his men’. The line shows how proud she is of her brother, as it illustrates that he was a leader of his men and that he was a superior individual. This factor makes her proud that Sakhr was her brother. ‘You saw a knight on a horse running with its tail floating’, this is another line, which serves to illustrate her pride in her brother.

Al-Khansa also displays her sadness in the poem. ‘What good is life-even if he was happy and ran out of time?’ she is saddened that he is gone, even though he was happy prior to his death. She concedes that life is not fair, and that death happened to the wrong person because he was happy prior to his death. The poem demonstrates the different emotions that may occur after the death of an individual, and in this case, Al-Khansa is mostly proud of her bother.