Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet Analysis

In Anne Bradstreet’s poem “The Author to Her Book”, a young child tells how their parents control their life. They explain how they aren’t the author of their own book and that everything in their life is being controlled. “Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true” (Line 3). Even their friends are being controlled. Their friends are being taken away from them because their parents believe that they are foolish and unfaithful. The adults say they are being too “exposed to the public view” (Line 4), meaning they are being showed and introduced to things their parents don’t want their child to experience.
In another part of the poem the author talks about how as much as they try to please others they still see imperfections within themselves. “I washed they face, but more defects I saw, and rubbing off a spot still made a flaw” (Lines 13-14). They made the child feel as though they weren’t good enough. As hard as they washed their face, it still would be a flaw there unable to be washed away. Constantly trying to improve themselves didn’t help them any. The more they tried to perfect themselves they saw more and more faults. One might believe that this would eventually cause their self esteem to drop dramatically, if it wasn’t already low. As they said in the beginning of the poem, “Who after birth didst by my side remain” (Line 2), this was relevant because it shows how the parents started out wanting to have the power in their child’s life without any of the child’s say.

On the other hand, the adults do try to make an effort to let their child walk on their own two feet and be their own person. “I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet, yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet; In better dress to trim thee was in my mind, but nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find…In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come, and take thy way where yet thou hadst not known” (Lines 15-21). Though the parents did try to let them be on their own, they saw that the child couldn’t handle it. They still saw flaws they wanted to fix and problems they wanted to saw but, they realized that their child can no longer be sheltered under their parents’ wings. It was time for them to let loose into a world unknown to their child.
The end of the poem was actually the beginning because it was a release for the child to venture off and explore new things. It was also time for them to let go of their parents, but it didn’t seem to be as hard as it was for the parents to let go. “If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none; and for thy mother, she alas is poor, which caused her thus to sent thee out of door” (Lines 22-24). The mother is poor because she does not have her child with her any more, her little bird had to leave the nest. It seemed as though she wanted nothing to do with her father. It was like they didn’t have one or he didn’t exist. Even in the poem they don’t mention the father. The child had disowned their father and left their mother, not out of rebellion, but just because they felt as if it was their time to be by themselves and to experience the abundance of life without the help of their parents.