Susan Musgrave's You Didn 'T Fit'

Individual characteristics and traits are what initiate and drive an ever-changing society. Individuality sparks innovation, keeps life captivating, and forces society to continue to grow. However, society also is the first place where individuality is not accepted or misunderstood. The idea of not fitting into society can be viewed as a painful experience. In Susan Musgrave’s poem “You Didn’t Fit,” she aims to show how no one fits into social norms. The poem intends to show how people believe they need to reach certain standards to be accepted and to find love, but in reality, everyone should be trying to stand out.
Most girls grow up and think there are certain standards they need to reach in order to feel liked. Standards that are designed to create the perfect image that are otherwise impossible to reach. And when one cannot meet these standards, they feel a sense of humiliation and loathing towards oneself. In this poem, the speaker does not have a lot of self-confidence, for she feels her “bones didn’t fit in [her] body” (32). The speaker felt foreign and awkward in her body and had a
Most try to find acceptance within their relationships with people. No father and daughter relationship is the same, as depicted in this poem. The poem describes a very strained and dysfunctional relationship. However, a special connection lies underneath between the father and daughter that cannot be put aside. The speaker describes a sense of not feeling accepted by her father and never “fitting in” his life. This causes her to never feel that she belongs and instead “always reaching” (30) or looking for something. Searching for a place where she will be accepted, a place where she will “fit into the arms of anyone” (29). Society has put an expectation on her to find a place where she is just another person with no special identify, with no