Nikita's+Analysis

//A Barred Owl by Richard Wilbur Explication by Nikita Dutta //

In //A Barred Owl// by Richard Wilbur, the image of the child being temporarily frightened by a harmless owl illustrates the inconsistency and irrationality of fear. Throughout the poem, the perception of the owl in the child’s mind is constantly varying from good to bad, showing that, because fear is illogical, it is ever changing, twisting around in our minds and distorting our view of the world.

At the very beginning of the poem when the child wakes up, the owl is seen to be frightening, which is demonstrated by the use of harsh language. For example, “The warping night air having brought the boom,” (line 1) can easily be taken as describing a storm outside. However, if you continue reading, you find that it is not necessarily a boom of thunder, but rather a boom “of an owl’s voice” (line 2). Therefore, Wilbur isn’t simply depicting the unpleasant weather outside so much as he is comparing the eeriness of the owl to that of a thunderstorm.

That being said, the girl’s intimidating conception of the owl is quickly changed by the end of the first stanza. Someone, probably a parent, comes in to comfort her and personifies the owl by translating its hoot into, “Who cooks for you?” (line 6). It is important to note here the use of the phrase, “if rightly listened to” (line 5), which strengthens the idea that what you’re afraid of depends entirely on how you interpret things.

The irregularity of fear is again shown in the second stanza with the scary depiction of the owl in the last three lines. Although the child has fallen back to sleep and is no longer outwardly afraid, Wilbur mentions the ferocity of the owl by using such phrases as “stealthy flight” (line 10), “in a claw” (line 11), and “eaten raw” (line 12) that more or less undo the personification from the previous stanza.

Because this poem is written in such simple language, there is a lot of room for interpretation and symbolism. Indeed, each of the characters is multileveled and has much more significance to them than just moving the plot along. Take the child, for instance. Using a little girl brings to mind someone small and innocent, thus begging sympathy from the reader. However, she is really just a placeholder. Virtually everyone has, at some point, been in a similar situation and can picture themselves as the child. For example, knowing that Wilbur himself fought in World War II, it is easy to imagine the child representing a soldier dealing with the traumas of war.

Another symbolic character, and probably the most obvious one, is the owl. Wilbur was smart to use an owl as the creature that scared the girl because owls have a unique sort of duality to them. On the surface, they look cute, harmless, and majestic, but hearing their call in the dead of night is very eerie. So, in the mind of a reader, it is just as natural for an owl to seem scary as it is for an owl to seem gentle. This makes the bird a perfect representation of the inconsistency of fear.

The final character is the most discrete, but hugely important nonetheless. It is the person, or people, who comfort the girl in the first stanza- “we” in the line, “We tell the wakened child” (line 3). Because “we” is rarely even mentioned in the poem, there is plenty of room for interpretation. I consider that “we” represents society- not in the sense that all of society is standing at the child’s bed comforting her, but rather that consoling others when they’re afraid is something our society as a whole is trained to do, even when we’re also scared ourselves. Perhaps “we” don’t want to outwardly show our fear, but, because it is expected of a child to do so, “we” don’t feel embarrassed reassuring a frightened little girl. However, behind the façade, “we” know that “we” are really reassuring ourselves as well.

Although this analysis isn’t the only construal of //A Barred Owl//, the poem can easily be taken this way. The constant changing of how the owl is perceived demonstrates how fear is always being altered and the rest of the characters also play a part in illustrating this irregularity. Through simple, but highly symbolic language, Wilbur shows that fear is illogical and, therefore, solely rooted in how we interpret seemingly frightening situations.

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