Summary Of For My Daughter By Weldon Kee

The speaker in Weldon Kee’s poem “For My Daughter” expresses his wish to not have a daughter as, in his opinion, life is simply full of pain and suffering. The use of unpleasant imagery involving the five senses demonstrates that life is harsh. The pessimistic diction and the dark metaphors reveals his pessimistic views on the future. The dark imagery, diction, and metaphors in the poem illustrates the speaker’s belief that horrible things will happen to the innocent and pure, like his daughter, causing him a disinclination to have a daughter. The speaker employs harsh imagery involving the five senses to demonstrate the iniquitous nature of humanity and the unpleasantness in life. The speaker imagines that the “[c]oldest of winds” (4) will

The tactile imagery reveals that there is cruelty, neglect and coldness in humanity. The speaker also predicts that his daughter will “relish in the sting of other’s agony” (10). The tactile and auditory imagery reveals that there is pain, suffering, as well as hatred in life. Another tactile imagery “mesh of seaweed snarled” (4-5) describes the feeling of having cold, slimy seaweed tangled around one’s wrists, suggest that the daughter is drowning. This imagery implies that accidents can happen in life. The speaker’s word choice “mesh” suggest that his daughter might have been underwater for a long time, as it is only possible for one to become entangled in a net of seaweed only if she has been in water for a very long time. This suggests that she has been abandoned, like a corpses that has been drowned for a long time. The description “foul lingering death in certain war, her slim legs green” (8-9) alludes to the chemical warfare in World War I and provides an olfactory imagery of rotting flesh and visual imagery of a corpse with skin stained green from the poisonous gas. This imagery demonstrates that humanity adores war and

In “death in certain war, her slim legs green” (9), the word choice “certain” clearly indicates the speaker’s belief that war will inevitably happen, further implying that his daughter’s slim legs will certainly be marked “green” by death. The use of past tense in “coldest of winds have blown this hair” (4) displays the speaker’s pessimistic view on his daughter’s future. The wind is the coldest because the speaker’s daughter is lacking in experience, therefore any wind that is colder than any she has experienced is the coldest wind. However, the use of past tense in this line almost makes it seem like the speaker is looking into the future and visualizing what would happen to his daughter. It reveals that he is certain that his daughter will not have shelter or be loved. The word “conceal” in line three also plays a role in suggesting that the speaker believes that his daughter will become corrupt. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “conceal” as to “disguise.” With this definition in mind, the meaning of the line “beneath the innocence of morning flesh concealed, hintings of death she does not heed” (2-3) changes to that the innocence of the speaker’s daughter is a disguise for death. The word choice “conceal” suggests that even the innocent has something to hide, proving the speaker’s belief that