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Analysis Of The Boy At The Window By Richard Wilbur

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The “Boy at the Window” written by Richard Wilbur is a tender poem that examines the anxieties of early life but is created by the author into two poems in one. Richard Wilbur utilizes two different points of view of the two main characters in his poem. This technique makes the reader think of the terrible truth of winter in a whole new light. Wilbur uses the word “boy” to not depict an individual person but a universal one of the gender in general.

Starting in stanza 1 the boy is looking out of the window at the snowman who is “standing all alone,” a remark that creates a lonely mood of the poem from the beginning. The boy is extremely upset throughout as he thinks of how this snowman much go against this brutal winter evening out in the
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The imagery of the first poem greatly contrasts from the overall tone. In “A Barred Owl,” Richard Wilbur describes an owl frightening a child and waking her from her slumber. Wilbur sets the scene with dark imagery: “The warping night air brought the boom/ Of an owl’s voice into her darkened

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She utilises a diptych structure which portrays the contrast of a child’s naive image of death to the more mature understanding they obtain as they transition into adulthood. This highlighted in ‘I Barn Owl’ where the use of emotive language, “I watched, afraid/ …, a lonely child who believed death clean/ and final, not this obscene”, emphasises the confronting nature of death for a child which is further accentuated through the use of enjambment which conveys the narrator’s distress. In contrast, ‘II Nightfall’, the symbolism of life as a “marvellous journey” that comes to an end when “night and day are one” reflects the narrator’s more refined and mature understanding of mortality. Furthermore the reference to the “child once quick/to mischief, grown to learn/what sorrows,… /no words, no tears can mend” reaffirms the change in the narrator’s perspective on death through the contrast of a quality associated with innocence, “mischief”, with more negative emotions associated with adulthood, “sorrows”.

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In Wilbur's poem does have irony for what creates two different kinds of world and makes the poem contradict each other. "Small thing in a claw ... eaten raw," is able to contradict with the small child sleeping peacefully to the using

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For the entire duration of the poem, the reader is able to infer how the complexity of the relationship changes and how the father feels about his son through the techniques and methods stated above. Within A Story, Lee uses point of view from both characters to convey the idea that the father’s relationship with his son is indeed, increasingly complex. The reader also learns from this point of view technique that the time of thought within the poem constantly changes. The boy’s young age is shown clearly in the beginning of the poem as: “His five-year-old son waits in his lap.”

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In the boy’s perspective, he sees the snowman through sympathetic eyes. “His tearful sight” makes it clear that he feels pity towards the snowman. The boy wants the snowman to come inside with him where it’s warm

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When first describing the boy, the narrator states, “I look at his raw face, he looks at my fur coat.” The word raw is defined as an area of the body that is red and painful; therefore, the raw face of the boy represents the harsh struggles that the boy must endure due to his impoverished environment. On the other hand, the narrator’s fur coat—an object that is both rare and expensive—symbolizes her wealth. Through the narrator’s donning of the fur coat, one is able to infer that the poem sets during the winter. Therefore, the redness of the boy’s skin is most likely due to the inability of his thin clothing in protecting him from the coldness of the weather.

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Throughout the poem, Hudgins provides many examples of imagery for the reader. He talks about Pulling up catfish from the mud, and the fire dancing in the night. These parts envelop the reader's mind, and transport them into the marsh. This helps the reader sympathize with the boy when he is pulled out of his place and punished for

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The descriptive short sentence of the setting being during “A winter day,” again emphasizes the normalcy of the situation, as well as hinting that the setting of the story takes place around Christmas time. The

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