The Budding Writer in Richard Wilbur’s “The Writer”
...Therefore, the title of the poem, "The Writer," refers to his daughter. “The sound of her typing is very heavy, “like a chain hauled over a gunwale” (Line 3). From this detail, we know that the girl tries very hard. Moreover, the process of her writing is inconsistent and she has to pause now and then (10). Sometimes, “she is at it again with a bunched clamor/ Of strokes, and gain is silent” (14-15). Through these vivid descriptions, the author exhibits a picture of how hard his daughter struggles to write. Furthermore, the father knows that his daughter will suffer many difficulties to become a real writer. Although the process of writing is very tough, it is valuable for his daughter’s growth. In the sentence, “the stuff of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy (7-8),” the “ great cargo” is a metaphor which symbolizes difficulties in his daughter's writing. From this sentence, I feel that the speaker’s tone is a little anxious because the father understands how challenging a process a new writer has to face. Then, Richard Wilbur expresses his best wishes for her in the third stanza, “I wish her a lucky passage.” In summary, we don’t see any more words that show Richard Wilbur’s love for his daughter in the first unit, though we can comprehend his emotion deeply. From the first unit, I know that the speaker understands that his daughter is trying very hard. As a professional writer, why does Richard Wilbur just stand outside the room rather than help his daughter? I got my answer from the second part of the poem. The part is from the sixth stanza to the tenth stanza. In this part, the author recalls how a lost starling persists to look for an open window in order to fly freely. At the beginning, Richard Wilbur and his daughter try to help the starling, so they “lift a sash (18).” However, the help doesn’t work at all. The bird flies in the wrong direction, and it knocks itself against “the hard door, or the desk-top (24).” The bird tries very hard even though it is “humped and bloody (25)." Finally, the starling lifts “off from a chair-back, / Beating a smooth course for the right window/ And clearing the sill of the world (28-30)." In my eyes, the starling symbolizes the author’s young daughter, the fledgling writer. The process of the starling trying to fly away to freedom is similar to the daughter’s process of learning to write. Both of them need lots of practice and a lot of effort. After reading this part, I understood why the father doesn't assist his daughter directly even though he is widely known as a professional writer. The starling’s story metaphorically illustrates Richard Wilbur’s view: his daught...