Childhood Outlooks

The poems “Bored,” “My Papa’s Waltz,” “The Video,” and “Fern Hill” present views of the world through the eyes of a child, often a younger version of the speaker. Many of these poems have a very reflective tone, as the speakers remember their childhoods and their simple outlooks on life. Some of the speakers even seem to gain a sense of understanding and realization as they reflect on a different time in their lives.
In Margaret Atwood’s “Bored,” the speaker reflects on how she let her time with a man, presumably her father, pass her by without appreciating it as a child. The activities that seemed dull or monotonous when she was a narrow-minded child become the things she later wishes that she had not taken for granted. The speaker realizes that she deprived herself from enjoying special time spent with her father.
In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” the speaker describes his relationship with his father who is probably an alcoholic. Even though a waltz conveys a smooth dance, the relationship between the speaker during his childhood and his father is anything but smooth. The speaker’s view of his father is idealistic and childishly simplistic. Even though his father treats him poorly, all that the speaker knows is that he is his father. This knowledge is enough to make the speaker struggle to get his father’s affection and “still cling to his shirt” (line 16), even after he sees his father’s mistakes and “every step he missed” (line 11).
In Fleur Adcock’s “The Video,” the speaker describes a young girl named Ceri and her reaction after her mother has a new baby. The speaker describes this new stage in Ceri’s childhood as filled with feelings of replacement, as represented by the quote from Ceri’s father, “Move over a bit” (line 4). Ceri, like most children, has a very simple understanding of the world. She hopes that by rewinding the videotape of her mother giving birth to her sister, she can “make her go back in” and resume her previous life.
In Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill,” the speaker reminisces about a very idealistic childhood. He uses words such as “carefree” (line 10), “golden” (line 5), and “happy” (line 11) to covey this optimistic time. However, after reflecting on his past, he realizes how simple his view of the world was. In reality, he could only view the world through the eyes of a child for so long, and “time held him green and dying though he sang in his chains like the sea” (line 54).
These poems have common themes of childhood simplicity and reflection upon earlier years. Although the speakers or the subjects in these poems once were ignorant, they gained a greater knowledge of the world and a better understand of their place in it.