What is the meaning of the poem "Child" by Sylvia Plath?
539279
Do you realize this is the Computers/Internet category, not the Arts category. Sylvia Plath was a great poet and a question in regards to be Sylvia Plath deserves to be in a category worthy of her poetry. It is also the courteous thing to do.
970897
the poet is trying to say that people naturally judge people by the color of their skin rather than their character qualities. he ends the poem with a plea to everyone to not think superficially about a person by his color but to look deeper, because behind the skin color is a human person just like everyone else in the world. \n\nso it means that everywhere everyone should treat each other like equals because everyone is just human like everyone else. there are bad people all over the world; there are also friendly people all over the world.
1085520
This is my interpretation of the poem....Maya Angelou was a victim of abuse and rape when she was young. I believe the poem expresses her son's thoughts. I believe he is telling his mother that she is not responsible for all the hurt of this world and any hurt or discomfort that he will face in this world and he is thanking her in his own way for her advice as he grew up.
848634
The longing of wanting to know, feel, love, understand, and the ability for herself to let her feelings known to everyone she loved.  She was just a child, like any other, she did not know how to relay her message to everyone.  Once Annie got inside of her, she realized she could communicate to others.
936894
What a great question Hadeel\n\nYou are definitely one of the most intelligent people I know!\n\nI think the answer is\n\n\n Monday's child is fair of face,\nTuesday's child is full of grace,\nWednesday's child is full of woe,\nThursday's child has far to go,\nFriday's child is loving and giving,\nSaturday's child works hard for a living,\nBut the child that's born on the Sabbath Day,\nis blithe and bonny, good and gay
594788
The actual quotation is "The Child is father of the Man" from the poem "My heart leaps up when I behold" by William Wordsworth(1770-1850):\n\nMy heart leaps up when I behold\nA rainbow in the sky:\nSo was it when my life began;\nSo is it now I am man;\nSo be it when I shall grow old,\nOr let me die!\nThe Child is father of the Man;\nAnd I could wish my days to be\nBound each to each by natural piety.\n\nA similar line appears in "Paradise Regained" by John Milton(1608-1674);\n\nThe childhood shows the man,\nAs morning shows the day.\n\nI hope this helps you.
1030398
Here are two very good articles.  Be sure to quote your sources!\n\n"Another poem of hers that I love, "The Soul has Bandaged moments," concludes, referring to moments too horrible and personal to tell to just anybody, "These, are not brayed of Tongue." Perhaps the meaning is: "These ought not to be brayed of tongue," given that in a number of poems she seems to do just that. For a poet to conceive images and phrases that can be said to "bray," which are equivalents of the harsh, grating, dissonant sounds made by donkeys, in order to say what is too terrible to be said, would be like a singer attempting sounds the human voice cannot make without risk to itself and could possibly damage the psyche permanently."\n\n\n------------------------\n"Many of human experiences can fit well into Emily Dickinson's poem. Living a life as rich and colorful in its spiritual detail and as desperately sensitive to meaning and context, it was as quiet in its conduct as it was unremarkable in its demographics. She lived in Amherst, Massachusetts and composed a great deal of terse poetry, dense with metaphor about the human experience, and about coping and managing in the loneliness of her isolation. \nThere are two internal figures here, one godly one demonic, vying to conquer the soul. She is not only bandaged because of some hurtful wound but also bandaged as enslaved or caught up in the pain. A classic battle between good an evil. She begins the first stanza from within herself frightened by her fear, then imagines her fear personified in the second verse as some entity that has taken her captive; the self is numb to itself. By the third stanza, as she does so brilliantly well, she uses nature as metaphor in her landsacpe with a happy moment of escape; the 'bee who swings upon the hours' Emily collects the 'fuzz ordained' only to be caught again by shackling and stapled fears in the fifth stanza. A wonderful contrast of the human condition; a way of putting two elements side by side using one to highlight the other then finally she sums it all up with a compressed, hard, and blazingly vivid stanza she laments in this tiny poem, they are to "not brayed of Tongue" perhaps because to her these moments are too horrible and personal to tell to just anybody. \n\nBy using the context of the history of ideas from Calvinism to Transcendentalism she shows us the tension between the affirmative and the negative which is at the core of her work as a writer. By 1862, she had written nearly half of her work and at his time suffered a great loss. "I had a terror," she told Higginson her mentor and friend, "I could tell to none." It easy to understand her detachment and the desire for silence, a seeking for understanding. \n\nLess than a dozen of Dickinson's poems were printed during her lifetime -- some without her permission, some were full of radical "improvements" "Publication - is the auction of the mind..." she noted, with haughty resentment, maybe in some way trying to comfort herself, and she tied her poems in bundles and put them in a drawer."
1094027
Sylvia Plath is comparing herself to the biblical character Lazarus in that poem, as she had "resurrected" herself from suicide a few times before that. She doesn't want to be rescued, and she holds those around her in contempt, particularly men.
975285
See as a child sees:\nThe joy,\nThe wonder,\nThe hope.
225712
All three are wretched stalkers of the innocent and the vulnerable.\nThe following verses were composed by a male adult who was victimized at the age of four by a sadistic young adult.\n\nO’ Spirit of a Child\nJoyful, fancy free, \nMost holy of gifts\nNo worry, not to worry,\nTo age no hurry\nIn joyment of life’s drifts.\nNever knew-till onto a moment lost\nAll innocence and precious time,\nCause innocence an exorbitant cost \n Ugly smear of depravity,\nA childhood suppressed\nBy particular vulgar slime,\nA child by hate obsessed.\nHow sad the day\nHow sad so sad,\nA lifetime lost, so lost\nEach day-to pay and pay,\nUgly unjust cost\nInnocence lost, so lost,\nInnocence, for a long time lost.\nUnworthy wretched wretchedness\nDashed from this life may you be,\nWay before me, before me!\nUntil that day I your accuser remain,\nDamned you always, away you be\nFrom this Child oppressed,\nWho’s forever by hate possessed, by hate obsessed. Jose
676387
This is what I found... hope it helps\n\n\nThe Child Angel\nby Rabindranath Tagore\n\nLet your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child,\nunflickering and pure, and delight them into silence.\n\nThey are cruel in their greed and their envy,\ntheir words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood.\n\nGo and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child,\nand let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the\nforgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day.\n\nLet them see your face, my child, and thus know the\nmeaning of all things, let them love you and love each other.\n\nCome and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child.\nAt sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower,\nand at sunset bend your head and in silence\ncomplete the worship of the day.
657801
The main theme as you should be able to tell from reading it is parental abuse, if you are unsure why, then it is because the child who the writer knows can climb trees without any problems, seems to be extremely clumbsy as far as his own mother is concerned, this is most likely the mother making excuses for the child being beaten by her or another relative.\n\nMy next-door neighbor tells me\nher child runs into things.\nCupboard corners and doorknobs\nhave pounded their shapes\ninto his face. She says\nhe is bothered by dreams,\nrises in sleep from his bed\nto steal through the halls\nand plummet like a wounded bird\ndown the flight of stairs.\n\nThis child who climbed my maple\nwith the sureness of a cat,\ntrips in his room, cracks\nhis skull on the bedpost,\nsmacks his cheeks on the floor.\nWhen I ask about the burns\non the back of his knee,\nhis mother tells me\nhe walks backwards\ninto fireplace grates\nor sits and stares at flames\nwhile sparks burn stars in his skin.\n\nOther children write their names\non the casts that hold\nhis small bones.\nHis mother tells me\nhe runs into things\nwalks backwards\nbreaks his leg\nwhile she lies\nsleeping.
939367
Childhood. " Youth is wasted on the young".
1177593
"Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind."\n\n"Children reinvent your world for you."\n\n"Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born."\n\n"Having a baby is definitely a labor of love."
891342
Awesome poem!\nAmazing!! lol...\nu were 10 or 11? that's so amazing!
734529
I believe the children are our are future \nTeach them well and let them lead the way \nShow them all the beauty they possess inside \nGive them a sense of pride to make it easier\nLet the children's laughter remind us how we used to be \nEverybody searching for a hero \nPeople need someone to look up to \nI never found anyone to fulfill my needs \nA lonely place to be \nSo I learned to depend on me \n\nChorus: \nI decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows \nIf I fail, if I succeed \nAt least I live as I believe \nNo matter what they take from me \nThey can't take away my dignity \nBecause the greatest love of all \nIs happening to me \nI found the greatest love of all \nInside of me \nThe greatest love of all \nIs easy to achieve \nLearning to love yourself \nIt is the greatest love of all \n\nI believe the children are our future\nTeach them well and let them lead the way \nShow them all the beauty they possess inside \nGive them a sense of pride to make it easier \nLet the children's laughter remind us how we used to be \n\n(Chorus)\nAnd if by chance, that special place \nThat you've been dreaming of \nLeads you to a lonely place \nFind your strength in love
267240
I agree that <http://www.100words.net/entry/read_member_batch.cfm?entry_member=Laura%20A%20Hill&entry_batch=November&entry_year=2003> is the only site that talks about this poem.  Don't try pinkmonkey.com and the other sites.  I couldn't find the poem comments in their results.