The Writer Richard Wilbur Analysis
In Richard Wilbur’s “The Writer” the speaker, likely Wilbur himself, creates a tribute to his daughter. He writes about the life of his daughter, specifically about her past and present life as a writer, but also what she needs to accomplish to rise and become a great writer that he knows she can become. The speaker uses mostly metaphor and symbolism to exhibit his daughter as best as he can, allowing the reader to better understand both the speaker and his daughter.
Wilbur’s metaphorical use of a cargo ship’s journey describes to the audience, anyone, his daughter’s writing, specifically using cargo ship diction such as “prow” (1), “gunwale”(6), “cargo”(8), and “bunched”(14). The daughter writes in the “prow of the house” (1), which in a real cargo ship is the part of the boat that is just above the water. To continue the metaphor, a cargo ship needs a chain to maintain its cargo on-board, and to become successful writing, the writer’s daughter should have a typewriter, and refers to the chain as “a chain of type writer-writer keys, like a chain hauled over a gunwale”(5,6), meaning as a …show more content…
The initial metaphor can only be interpreted in a x amount of ways, prow, gunwale, cargo, passage, with each word and its meaning being able to stretch so far. The speaker’s iridescent starling symbol, however, can be described in an infinite amount of ways. As the starling can be interpreted in infinitely, the daughter, her behaviors, her struggle against adversity can be described with as many metaphors as one can think of; it’s indescribable. In Richard Wilbur’s “The Writer”, the speaker uses symbolism directly after a metaphor to complexify his seemingly 2-dimensional daughter and her struggles. His level of respect and compassion for the starling shows the reader who the daughter is as a person and what she means to the
Wilbur’s metaphorical use of a cargo ship’s journey describes to the audience, anyone, his daughter’s writing, specifically using cargo ship diction such as “prow” (1), “gunwale”(6), “cargo”(8), and “bunched”(14). The daughter writes in the “prow of the house” (1), which in a real cargo ship is the part of the boat that is just above the water. To continue the metaphor, a cargo ship needs a chain to maintain its cargo on-board, and to become successful writing, the writer’s daughter should have a typewriter, and refers to the chain as “a chain of type writer-writer keys, like a chain hauled over a gunwale”(5,6), meaning as a …show more content…
The initial metaphor can only be interpreted in a x amount of ways, prow, gunwale, cargo, passage, with each word and its meaning being able to stretch so far. The speaker’s iridescent starling symbol, however, can be described in an infinite amount of ways. As the starling can be interpreted in infinitely, the daughter, her behaviors, her struggle against adversity can be described with as many metaphors as one can think of; it’s indescribable. In Richard Wilbur’s “The Writer”, the speaker uses symbolism directly after a metaphor to complexify his seemingly 2-dimensional daughter and her struggles. His level of respect and compassion for the starling shows the reader who the daughter is as a person and what she means to the