Boy at the Window

The “Boy at the Window” by Richard Wilbur is a poignant poem. Richard Wilbur “said that he wrote the “Boy at the Window” after seeing how distressed his five-year-old son was about a snowman they had built” was stuck out in a storm (Clugston, 2010). Poignant can be described as an awareness of both beauty and loss through powerful feelings or pain. Poetry has this beautiful gift of being able to evoke strong feelings in the reader. In the “Boy at the Window” the poet captures the innocent nature of his son at the window and exemplifies this magnificently with skillful use of personification, tone and image.
The poem starts by using a depressing and somber tone from the overly dramatic perspective of a young boy. The poem is told by an omniscient outside perspective. The poet starts by describing the outdoor aspect of the snowman’s situation as being a lonely and terrifying experience, as seen in lines three and four of the first stanza. “The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare/ A night of gnashings and enormous moan.” (Clugston, 2010). It is apparent that, to this boy, this is a huge frightening storm blowing in and threatening his poor snowman. Furthermore, the use of personification and metaphors are used to describe the prediction of the storm’s violent behavior as gnashing and moaning, both are which human qualities that can sometimes express pain and anger. Specifically, gnashing paints this image of something being grinded up through extreme impact, almost like a tornado’s behavior. The poem then gives a description of the snowman’s facial expression as seen by the young boy, showing a desperation and betrayal as compared to the biblical story of a God-forsaken Adam looking into Eden for the last time. This gives the poem a touching depth to the fear that the boy grasps and represents the emotional transfer to the snowman in the boy’s mind.
The second stanza is written from the snowman’s perspective given the poem a true personal touch. Through the