Loss of Innocence, Poetry, College Term Papers.com


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Back to Subjects - Poetry

Loss of Innocence

Loss of Innocence A rite of passage is defined as a ceremony marking a significant transition or an important event or achievement, both regarded as having great meaning in lives of individuals. In Sharon Olds' moving poem "Rite of Passage", these definitions are illustrated in the lives of a mother and her seven-year-old son. The seriousness and significance of these events are represented in the author's tone, which undergoes many of its own changes as the poem progresses. From its title, the tone of the poem is already set as serious, and we know there will be a significant event taking place in someone's life. As earlier stated, a rite of passage is an important ceremony or a life changing event. Thus, we can infer that the poem's meaning will be important and serious. In the first line, "As the guests arrive at my son's party" the use of the word "guests", as opposed to the use of words like kids or boys or children, represents a more mature and serious feeling, more so than one would expect at a child's birthday party. Though it is a party, we don't feel any of the lighthearted, rambunctious excitement we would expect to find. Olds has set the tone as serious from that moment on, and it only becomes increasing so as we read on. Most of us can easily picture a typical child's party, loud and hyper boys running about, noise and fun and screaming kids and chaos, but this party seems to be viewed differently by the mother. It is a more serious and quiet event. She sees the boys as "short men" gathering in the living room, not as children having fun. The children seems subdued to us, with "hands in pockets". It is almost as if they are waiting, as the readers are, for something of importance to take place. The tone of the poem begins to change as the boys become more and more aggressive. They "jockey for position" as if gearing up for a some imagined competition. The poem's tone becomes one of anticipation and nervousness. The boys are like horses in their racing gates, waiting for the run to start. We can almost hear the snorting noses and the pawing feet. This aggressive competitiveness is also shown by the "small fights breaking out and calming", again like horses in a pen, waiting for release. There is an excitement that continues to build as the boys speak to each other, in tense words filled with simple masculine competitiveness, trying to one-up each other. Nervousness is implied in the line "they clear their throats a lot". We know that something is going to take place, something significant and important in the lives of the mother and the boy. Still, through this, the mother sees the children, especially her own son, as fairly innocuous, only posturing as men, but still calm, like "a room full of small bankers". They may be men, she seems to say, but they are gentlemen, and harmless at that. The macho posturing becomes more tangible and tense when one older boy says to a younger one "I could beat you up". This statement puts the reader and the speaker on guard, aware that a change is taking place. One can almost see the mother perk up her ears. The two boys in potential combat stand in front of "the dark cake, round and heavy as a turret". This is an illusion to a medieval turret, a sort of Trojan horse used to smuggle in ancient warriors or destructive weapons, to take over a village or city or kingdom. We wonder what surprise this turret holds for the poem's speaker. It seems to symbolizes the mother's anticipation as well as our own. The two boys stand in front of the dark turret, like knights ready to joust. They eye each other like fighters in a ring, ready for combat. Until now, the mothers views her son as innocent and youthful, but his future actions are anything but that. "Freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks" symbolizes the mother's view that her son remains a baby, delicate as a sweet batter, ready to be baked up into muffins. His youth is symbolized by the line "chest narrow as the balsa keel of a model boat". Balsa wood is very soft and tender, delicate in its strength, and can be molded and bent to the whim of the crafter of the "model boat." The freckles and the balsa wood are symbols of the way the mother feels; that as a parent, she still has some control over his destiny and over who he will become and what he will do. She is the baker, she is the builder of the model boat. In fact, the mother even recollects how like an infant he still is as she reflects on his birth and "the day they guided him out of me", representing her denial at her son's pending adulthood. The son's rite of passage to manhood, his acceptance as the role of host and peacemaker and unifier, is a shocking one to both speaker and reader. To unite his comrades, he comments "We could easily kill a two-year-old" and the tone of the poem changes finally to one of heartlessness at the blunt brutality of the statement. The mother realizes then that the young boys, the future "Generals" who will soon live as men do "playing war", are far from innocent. Her rite of passage is a complete and sad transition from the mother of a child that she has some control over to the parent of a independent man, who will make his own choices and fight his own battles. Bibliography:

Word Count: 952