Boy at the Window
Richard Wilbur's "Boy at the Window"
"Boy at the Window" by Richard Wilbur is a poem about the reciprocal pity that a young boy and a snowman have for each other as they both watch the other interact in an environment in which they cannot exist. The poem presents a story of sadness and eventual understanding that is easily relatable to any reader, and Wilbur does a remarkable job of making his poem resonate in the minds of his readers with the use of vivid imagery, relatable context and engaging language, which work together to make this short poem touch a deeper level in the minds and hearts of readers than one might imagine it would at first glance.
The poem opens with the young boy staring out the window at the snowman he has presumably made, standing alone in the cold and darkness of a particularly unpleasant night. With the imagery that Wilbur uses, the reader is able to see...
This imagery extends throughout the poem, as Wilbur paints the picture of the Christian figure Adam being cast out of the Garden of Eden, which each reader can picture in their own subjective minds. Finally, the imagery switches to that of the snowman, upon the respective switch in perspective. The snowman watches the young boy cry and is so moved by what he sees that he himself melts to form one single tear, which is set off by the juxtaposed imagery of the bright window that the child stands inside.
Additionally, Wilbur's use of language and more specifically, rhyme, allow the reader to take on the deeper meaning of the poem in a way that glides and flows within the minds and off the tongues of anyone reading the…
