To A Daughter Leaving Home Poem Analysis

Linda Pastan’s poem, “To a Daughter Leaving Home” is a mother’s reflection of the progression of her daughter’s life from childhood to being independent and leaving home for the first time. The speaker is a mother who reflects back on teaching her daughter to ride a bicycle at eight years old and compares the memory to her daughter’s current independence of leaving home as an adult. The nostalgic tone of this poem conveys that the mother is emotional about the parting of her daughter, but she eventually realizes that the daughter is happy to be independent. The poem implies that the mother has been a very involved mother to her daughter and may have some anxiety about the daughter’s departure from home.
Pastan uses the poetic devices alliteration, …show more content…
The nostalgic tone of this poem easily allows the reader to relate to the emotions being conveyed by the speaker. The speaker portrays a sentimental feeling towards the past years in teaching her daughter to ride a bicycle. The poem is focused on the daughter as a child, but the title of the poem indicates that the daughter is now grown and leaving home. The reader can sense that the speaker feels a little sad towards her daughter’s milestone. However, the memory of teaching her daughter to ride a bicycle expresses that the tone is not completely sad; the mother experiences delight in watching her daughter’s happiness in leaving home and gaining independence. The title “To a Daughter Leaving Home” is the most important component of explicating this poem. Without knowing the title of this poem the entire meaning of the poem dissolves. Pastan used the title to reveal the outcome of the poem. Before the reader reads the first line of the poem they can assume that the poem is going to be about a daughter leaving home. Although the time and place are not exactly given in the poem, the reader can still paint a mental picture of a mother and daughter experiencing milestones in childhood and adulthood