Something else that strikes me funny is that her mother dresses her in her daughter in her best clothes to go to church with her. What is ironic here is that she ended up wearing them to her funeral instead (Hunter 26). There is also a shift in dialogue here in the fifth stanza(Hunter 27). Here the narrator starts to take over. The narrator's tone shows the reader the pride and joy that the mother takes in her child's appearance (Hunter 29). It also gives the reader some sense of reassurance and cleanliness as the mother is brushing her daughters night-dark hair. She also dresses her in the same fashion (Hunter 36). She tries to dress her all in white, which is the symbol for purity. But no matter how hard the mother tries to have her daughter conform to the "whites", they are ultimately the ones who kill her (Hunter 41). Something else that is ironic comes about in the sixth stanza. The mother smiled to know her child was in the sacred place, but that smile was the last smile to come upon her face. This gives the reader a sense of what is about to happen(Hunter 44). This stanza is ironic because if the mother thinks her daughter is going to be in a safe place, why would this be the last time she would ever smile? The figures of speech that Randall uses in this poem also give the poem a touch of irony. He uses two types of figures of speech, and he uses them very well. First, he uses the metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, different thing by being spoken of as if it were that other; implied comparison. He uses this in stanza five to hint to the reader that the child is an African American female(Hunter 47). He also uses it in stanza seven to show how angry, afraid and worried her mother gets when she hears the explosion. The other figure of speech that Randall uses is repetition. He uses the saying, "No, baby, no, you may not go", in stanza two and then again in stanza four.