Peggy Carr's Flight of the Firstborn: Analysis

The mother in the book “My Sister’s Keeper”, Jodi Picoult, said “Goldfish get big enough only for the bowl you put them in. Bonsai trees twist in miniature. I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.” In this quote the mother is speaking about how she wished her daughter hadn’t grown up and is reluctant to let her go. In “Flight of the Firstborn”, Peggy Carr addresses the feelings of parenthood when a child outgrows their parents and in turn leave their parents to start their own lives. Through metaphors, imagery and through constant use of enjambment the author expresses the parental feeling of having a child grow up in front of their eyes. Metaphors are figures of speech that show that two things resemble each other in either the emotions that they bring or the actions that are taken. In “Flight of the Firstborn”, the speaker says “He streaks past his sixteenth year / small island life stretched tight / across his shoulders” (Carr 1-3). By saying this the speaker is comparing the childhood isolated from the world as being a shirt that is now too small for their child. The speaker later compares their child (son in this case??) leaving as “[being] left stranded / on a tiny patch of time” (11-12), likening the act of a child leaving home for the world as being alone in time. The metaphors show the reader that though they might like the “shirt” of childhood on their children, parents can’t prevent them from outgrowing it. Also when the child finally does, the parents are left stranded alone wishing for the past. Carr uses imagery to add visuals and more emotion when describing parenthood. The speaker describes in short the things they’ve seen leading up to their child moving out, saying his strides rehearsing city blocks college brochures airline schedules stream excitedly through his newly competent hands (4-8). Once the child moves out the parent speaker says “[I’m] still reaching / to wipe the cereal from his smile” (13-14). These statements put images of a young adult organizing their life excitedly and then a flashback of a young child eating their cereal messily, still needing a parent to guide them unlike their adult counterpart. This depicts the excitement of the child from the parents view and that the parent is longing for the days where the child needed them still. *enjambment paragraph here* Altogether, Peggy Carr describes with accuracy the feelings of sadness and the wish to slow the fleeting time in which children grow up in. “Flight of the Firstborn”, using purposeful metaphors, imagery and enjambment, demonstrates the feelings of parents watching their firstborn leave pursue their own life. The devices used connect with parents or those with parental feelings towards someone close to them to share in the bitter-sweet feeling of watching a child become independent adults.