Analysis Of The Poem Death Of A Young Son By Drowning

Death of a young son by drowning” by Margaret Atwood conveys the story of the emotions of a parent losing a child and not being able to help them. “...on a voyage of discovery into the land I floated on but could not touch to claim,” in this poem Atwood takes the reader on an emotional journey using literary devices such as imagery, personification and metaphors to express the depth of her feelings and give a larger sense of what its like for the reader to understand roughly what the speaker must be feeling starting from a point of darkness. The poem takes you on a journey that Margaret touches on with different emotions and themes through the process of grief and then ending in pride to have had such a son. The tone of sorrow is
In the last sentence Atwood compares his eyes to thin glass bubbles as too say there was no life
The vision of that life she had envisioned was nothing but a distant dream, something she can no longer hold onto. Her young son will never live up to the expectations that his mother had once dreamt for him. To live the life he deserved to live but ended so corruptly. If you have ever gone through grief you will realize that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. The author transitioned this to show that the sign of grief is also acceptance in that things will become better. The enlightenment happens in the lines following the cairn with “...it was spring the sun kept shining, the new grass leapt to solidity” you can compare the passing of her son to a cold winter and the acceptance of his passing to spring, when Atwood speaks of the grass as if she talking about how she is holding on strong, “...after the long trip I was tired of waves, my foot hit the rock” these lines give the reader the sense that she was on the ride with her son the whole time feeling his death as if she was in the water with him but not wanting to feel that pain any longer and finally putting a stop to those emotions to finally feel something new,