Similarities Between The Barred Owl And The History Teacher

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Poetry is a way of writing with an underlying message appealing to emotion of the reader. In normal writing, one would tolerate an idea and briefly scratch the surface of its message, whereas in poetry you have to decipher the message which makes the reader more likely to connect to the writing. In the two poems, “A Barred Owl,” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher,” by Billy Collins, adults provide explanations to children that make life seem friendlier. Each of these poems contains different content, a unique structure, and using literary devices to demonstrate a similar theme of innocence. To start off with, the content of these poems reveal innocence by revolving around two entirely different events. In “The Barred Owl,” it is the idea of a child hearing an owl in the night and the parents comforting the child and implying that the owl is talking to them. How the …show more content…

Ignorance is bliss and it seems the older one gets, the more complicated life seems. As a kid, one would think of ‘I want to be a doctor,’ rather than ‘how do I become a doctor.’ Parents find this adorable and let the child dream on as they want the best for their children. In “A Barred Owl,” the parents want to keep their child at peace of mind. “Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.” (Wilbur 11-12). If she knew what the owl was really doing, she would be considered tainted to them as she would know bad exists. In “The History Teacher” the teacher does not want history to repeat itself, so he covers the raw facts of it all. Ironically, the children behave badly themselves as they do not know what is bad. “The Children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart, mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,” (Collins 13-16). Both poems stress on keeping innocence yet how in the end it becomes a negative

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