The Writer: Metaphor vs. Symbolism

"Daddy's little girl" is a term that has been around for ages to explain the relationship between a loving father and his daughter. The Writer by Richard Wilbur is almost a tribute poem in its nature. Wilbur writes about his daughter's life and what she has done, what she is doing, and what she needs to do in order to break out and become the successful writer he wants and knows she can be. To portray his message, Wilbur utilizes first metaphor, then symbolism in order to display his daughter as accurately as he can. The usage of symbolism is a more appropriate and complex figure than the metaphor, and allows the reader to obtain an in depth look at who "the writer" really is.

The boat being described by Wilbur is a metaphor used to show that his daughter's writing is like the journey of a cargo ship. The four words he uses to establish the metaphor are prow, gunwale, cargo, and passage. Literally, the prow of a boat is the part that is above the water. When interpreted figuratively, the "prow of the house" (1) is the area of the house his daughter is in when she writes. A gunwale of a boat is its upper side. In keeping with the metaphor, you need a chain to keep the cargo in place on board a boat, and in order to be a successful writer; it is good to have a typewriter (referencing: "a chain of type-writer keys / Like a chain hauled over a gunwale" [5-6]). The cargo of a boat is the contents of what it is carrying. The cargo of the boat that Wilbur describes is "the stuff / Of her life…some of it heavy" (8-9). Cargo is used here to represent the figurative "baggage" that the daughter has, while still at a young age. The passage of the boat is the journey that she must take in order to go beyond where she is now and become a successful writer.

The "dazed starling" (18) described is a symbol for the girl's writing career, since it was something that was actually there, but also portrays who his daughter is; something bigger than just a bird. Wilbur specifically calls the starling dark, wild, and iridescent; three words that double as ways to describe his daughter. The word dark refers to the color of the bird, but it brings with it connotations of mystery in a compelling but yet, almost foreboding way, adding more mystery to the girl. The wildness of the starling shows how much energy she has, and how much she will do in order to achieve her goal. Finally, iridescent adds the ultimate sense of obscurity to her. When something is iridescent, it means that it shows more than one color; and you can see these multiple colors by observing the object at different angles. By giving his daughter the label iridescent, it allows the reader to infer that there is a lot of depth to her, and you can see all that there is to her depending on how you look at her.

The starling more appropriately represents the girl's writing than the boat because it draws a firmer conclusion on who she is as a person. Inside the room where the bird is, there is a life or death situation. If the trapped starling does not make it out of the room, it will die. Wilbur tells his daughter: "It is always a matter, my darling, / Of life or death, as I had forgotten." (30-31) The metaphor of a boat dropping off its cargo (at whatever the destination may be) does not portray a life or death situation; especially when the contents of the cargo are not explained. Since it is in fact a life or death situation, there is going to be a struggle for life from the subject. By using the boat as a metaphor, Wilbur cannot accurately portray the struggle that his daughter goes through in order to become this successful writer she wishes to be. There are no signs of a struggle with a cargo boat on its passage. However, the bird is trying every second of the hour it spends trying to escape the room. Wilbur describes the experience of watching the starling's attempts at freedom: "We watched the sleek, wild, dark / And iridescent creature / Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove / To the hard floor, or the desk-top…" (21-24). The tribulations of the bird are finally for good as at long last, it escapes through the window. Without this, the reader would have never been able to know the determination of the bird given only the lone four metaphors of the cargo ship.

The starling is a more complex representation of Wilbur's daughter's story writing because it contains an infinite number of ways to represent the girl. By definition, a symbol is something that represents another thing that is bigger than itself. The things that can be inferred with a symbol are infinite, making the characterization of the girl quite complex. When using the boat metaphor to describe the daughter, there are only four ways in which it can be used to describe her writing life. Once you place a figurative meaning on prow, gunwale, cargo, and passage, you cannot get anything else from the girl. Since it is so easy to interpret the meanings of these words, it also puts a two dimensional label onto the girl; a title that she decidedly does not deserve. So once it is all said and done, and you have exhausted all four of the ways that the boat symbolizes the girl's writing life, it proves that it cannot be as much as the symbol of the bird. By breaking down the two words, a metaphor can only have x amount of ways to be interpreted, while a symbol has an infinite number of ways.

In The Writer, Richard Wilbur successfully utilizes symbolism after previously using a metaphor to characterize who his daughter is in a more appropriate and complex manner. The symbol of the bird is more complex than the metaphor of the boat by its definition. The appropriateness of the symbol is more sufficient than the metaphor because it shows how three dimensional his daughter is while the boat shows a plain, easy to read depiction of her. By making it a priority to find the right way to describe his daughter, Wilbur shows a deep level of compassion for "the writer", and not only shows the reader who she is as a person, but what she means to him.