Similarities Between A Barred Owl And The History Teacher

An adult’s main priority regarding children is to not make them fearful of the unknown. In the two poems, “A Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins, both speakers are adult that provide explanations for children. Through the use of literary devices, the speakers in the poems are able to express their different approaches while trying to protect the children’s innocence. In the poem “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins, the speaker is a teacher is trying to provide explanations to his students about historical events. While attempting to not scare the children with the real events in history, Collins uses sarcasm and a somewhat humorous tone throughout the poem to explain the historical context. An example

The child in the poem is a girl as it says, “her darkened room” (Line 2) and “all she heard.” (Line 3) In the poem, an owl awakens the girl and scares her with the “owl’s voice” (Line 2) and the parent is trying to help the child continue sleeping. The child is fearful of the owl’s hooting, so the parent uses a phrase that sounds like the owl’s hooting, “Who cooks for you?” (Line 6) in order to try to make the girl’s fear disappear. This is in fact a personification because the parent is making it seem as if the owl asked that question, which in reality, owls aren’t able to talk. Furthermore the child’s innocence is present in this poem as the girl has no idea that the owl is not harmful at all, but she is will scared and that is the reason the parent tells the girl a white lie to help her go back to sleep. This poem is not harming the child’s knowledge and instead, it is trying to help the girl. In contrast, Collin’s poem makes the students ignorant by lying about the historical events. By using personification, Wilbur states, “Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear” (Line 7) and “thus domesticate a fear “(Line 8). These two lines in the poem make it seem as if words were able to make children fear as well as make them relieved, so the parent had to choose words