Response to “Boy at the Window”
Response to “Boy at the Window”
In reading “Boy at the Window” by Richard Wilbur, it gives us a unique look to a response to a child and a snowman. We are told that the poem was written “after seeing how distressed his five-year old son was about a snowman they had built” (Clugston, 2010). The poem is about a how a little boy becomes sad after building a snowman and seeing him outside alone. Wilbur uses different literary elements to draw strong feeling in this poem. We are shown two different points of view in this poem, first the boys then is the snowman. In the first few lines you can think that the young boy is crying about the snowman and how terrified the snowman may be. He sees the snowman standing all alone. Then hears the wind picking up and feels what the snowman may be feeling. The boy shows true compassion for the snowman. The use of personification is shown when Wilbur says “the pale faced figure with bitumen eyes Return him a God-forsaken stare” (Clugston, 2010). Personification is a figure of speech formed when qualities normally associated with a person are attributed to abstract things or inanimate objects (Clugston, 2010). The snowman is content and he did not want to go inside the house yet as he looked at the young boys cry. The snowman doesn’t have the desire to be inside the house because he would melt. The snowman can only live in his world, but he is moved when the little boys cries. “The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, having no wish to go inside and die”. “Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry” (Clugston, 2010). Both the little boy and the snowman show of pity for each other’s life and at the same time showing the same pity of misunderstanding each other’s lives, which has made the poem to be interesting. An allusion is a reference a writer makes to a recognized literary work, a person, a historic event, or an artistic achievement to clarify the meaning of an action or a detail in a story, poem, or drama
In reading “Boy at the Window” by Richard Wilbur, it gives us a unique look to a response to a child and a snowman. We are told that the poem was written “after seeing how distressed his five-year old son was about a snowman they had built” (Clugston, 2010). The poem is about a how a little boy becomes sad after building a snowman and seeing him outside alone. Wilbur uses different literary elements to draw strong feeling in this poem. We are shown two different points of view in this poem, first the boys then is the snowman. In the first few lines you can think that the young boy is crying about the snowman and how terrified the snowman may be. He sees the snowman standing all alone. Then hears the wind picking up and feels what the snowman may be feeling. The boy shows true compassion for the snowman. The use of personification is shown when Wilbur says “the pale faced figure with bitumen eyes Return him a God-forsaken stare” (Clugston, 2010). Personification is a figure of speech formed when qualities normally associated with a person are attributed to abstract things or inanimate objects (Clugston, 2010). The snowman is content and he did not want to go inside the house yet as he looked at the young boys cry. The snowman doesn’t have the desire to be inside the house because he would melt. The snowman can only live in his world, but he is moved when the little boys cries. “The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, having no wish to go inside and die”. “Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry” (Clugston, 2010). Both the little boy and the snowman show of pity for each other’s life and at the same time showing the same pity of misunderstanding each other’s lives, which has made the poem to be interesting. An allusion is a reference a writer makes to a recognized literary work, a person, a historic event, or an artistic achievement to clarify the meaning of an action or a detail in a story, poem, or drama
References: Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books .