Boy At The Window By Richard Wilbur

The Frozen Outcast When we look at life situations from our one and only perspective, we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. It is impossible for us to view things from the point of view of anyone other than ourselves. Within the poem “Boy at the Window,” Richard Wilbur gives life to this expression, while showing us two poems in one. Wilbur uses point-of-view, along with personification, irony, and imagery, to make “Boy at the Window” the poem it is. This poem shows the reader the point-of-view of a lonely boy and a snowman who is stuck outside in the cold, unloving darkness of night. The boy stands …”at the bright pane surrounded by/ Such warmth, such light, such love…” (L. 15-16). He creates a poem of his own with his point-of-view alone. The point-of-view of the young child presents a setting of lonely, bitter darkness in which the snowman stands, warmth and love scarce in the presence of the moaning wind like the limited feeling of mercy in an event of uncaring torture. The boy looks at the “…pale-faced figure…” (L. 6) through the window and receives a stare showing feelings …show more content…
The snowman is looking at the boy from a world outside of the warm house and is “…moved to see the youngster cry…” (L. 11). He has no wish of joining the child inside the house filled with deadly warmth ready to kill the snowman at the slightest contact., but lets out a drop “…of the purest rain, a tear…” (L. 14) for the young boy standing in the company of the light and warmth of his home. The snowman stands in the cold darkness looking in on the paradise that he can’t be a part of. The boy’s house is filled with light, love, and warmth. The snowman stands outside, glimpsing at a home filled with light and warmth and love, and a boy filled with so much emotion for the snowman who stares in like a frozen