In Sharon Old’s poem, “The Planned Child” she conveys the theme of the realization of the value of one’s life and the coming of age through the use of symbolism, imagery, and point of view. When the speaker says “I hated the fact that they planned me,” (line 1), this shows us that the speaker finds her conception as an emotionless, meaningless event. In this poem, you will see the speakers attitude changing from hatred, then to doubt, and then to gratitude for her mother having planned her conception. In the first stanza of “The Planned Child” Olds’ makes the speakers point of view of hatred towards her mother for the way she was planned, wishing instead that she had “…been conceived in heat, in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex...”(lines
