I had to read this poem several times before I got a grip on it. I believe that the theme to this poem would be the innocence of a small child and her beliefs. The young little girl in this poem is showing her innocence by believing that even though her sister moaned and is now buried in the ground in the church yard, she is still looking for her siblings. I realized that the poem is about a little girl who is searching for her other siblings. She believes that she and her siblings total seven in number. I believe that Wordsworth is being taught by this little girl that he should look around him and see her other siblings. While the two siblings are dead and buried in the church cemetery, she believes that by being in the cemetery at her sister's headstone where she and her brother used to play, she is still there with them.
The poem has a verse which reads "The first that died was sister Jane;In bed she moaning lay,Till God released her of her pain;And then she went away." When I read this I see biblical background, even with replacing the word God with she. This was very powerful and spiritual to me. This verse has several euphemisms when talking about her sister Jane going away after "God released her of her pain"
This writing does not have your typical romance of a boy and a girl who share a love in a story where there is a force who keeps the two of them from sharing their love for one another, it does have some of the same obstacles that two people in love share, just this is a different type of love. The romance int his story is the love that the eight year old little girl has for her two siblings who died and went onto heaven. While the siblings physical body is not with her so that she can touch it and physically play with them each day, their spirits still reside on Earth with her and she spends her time with them. She believes this so much that she tells the passer by (Wordsworth) this.
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7 comments:
Mike,
Very good focus in this first blog post. I like the way you select a single poem by Wordsworth and dig deeply into it in your analysis, rather than generalizing about several of his poems. You do a good job of discussing the poem, especially when you ground your comments in specific quotations. Be wary of assuming the adult speaker is Wordsworth himself, though. THe adult is not convinced by the little girl, but instead gets more and more aggravated with her. I think the poet really does sympathize with the girl's perspective, but the adult speaker does not. The poem's message, I think, comes from the conflict between these two points of view.
Once again, good first post, and I look forward to reading your subsequent posts.
I wrote on this poem also. I thought that the speaker in the poem was more confused than angry with the little girl. I think the point you made about the "typical" romance. This poem obviously deals with a deep love, however it is not the love we typically read about in poems. Otherwise, I had a very similar understanding of the poem.
I like what you had to say about the innocence of the little girl in the poem. She is very young and perhaps slightly confused about where her brother and sister have gone; she has yet to acknowledge that they are dead, but knows that their physical bodies are no more. On the contrary, the speaker in the poem is an adult and has great difficulty seeing eye to eye with the young child. He argues that there are only five children in her family.
What I found myself wondering is why the child and the adult feel so differently. Do you think sometimes having child-like innocence as an adult could be a blessing? I personally think that it can be. Sometimes, seeing the world through the eyes of child is the best way to deal with the things life throws your way.
I wrote on this poem as well. I must agree I had to read it several time to get an understanding of what the author was trying to bring across. I really like what you said about the innocence of the little girl and that the adult is being taught by this little girl that he should look around him and see her other siblings. I also think that it was the little girl who was fustrated with the adult and was wondering why are you asking me so many times how many we are, can't you see we are seven.
Finally, I think the adult should have simpatize with the little girl because all of us had some story when we were little, due to our innocence and no one could convince on otherwise.
I wrote on this poem too because I really enjoyed it. I did think that the speaker was getting very angry with the little gril at the end of the poem because she will not give up her innocence. I enjoyed your connection to a love story. I had not seen it in this way when I first read the poem, but I thought that was an interesting take.
I did not write on this poem, but I thought your interpretation of it being about the girl's innocence was very insightful. I also liked how you emphasized lines 49-52 about God releasing her sister from her pain and how those lines were very spiritual for you. The other thing I liked about your post was the mention of how the poem does not have a typical kind of love, but more of an emphasis on the love between a little girl and her family.
I am so happy to see you blog this poem. It was one of my absolute favorites in the book. We Are Seven is a poem that catches my attention no matter how many times I read it. I absolutely loved your analysis of the poem. Your focus is very different from mine. I loved the way you pointed out that u feel the poem is surrounded around the little girl's innocence. Great analysis of the poem!
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