Snowball - Analysis

Trying to Keep Winter Like a Pet

The poem’s central joke carries a real point: the speaker wants to turn something temporary into something domestic and dependable, and nature refuses to cooperate. From the start, the snowball is treated like a crafted masterpiece—as perfect as could be—and then immediately like an animal the speaker can own: I thought I’d keep it as a pet. That wish is tender and a little controlling at once. A snowball is made to vanish, but the childlike voice tries to make it stay by giving it a role in the household and even in the bed.

Pajamas and a Pillow: Imagination Over Reality

The speaker doubles down on make-believe caretaking: I made it some pajamas and a pillow for its head. These details are funny because they’re so specific and so unnecessary for an object of snow—yet they’re also sincere. The poem lets us feel the pleasure of pretending: if you can dress it, name it (even silently), and tuck it in, then it starts to seem like it belongs with you. The tension is that the speaker’s affection depends on denying what the snowball actually is: cold, melting, and unable to be kept alive.

The Turn: It Ran Away

The poem pivots on one bedtime sentence: Then last night it ran away. The tone shifts from cozy to sudden loss, but the loss is framed in the language of a runaway pet, not a puddle. That choice matters: it preserves the child’s logic even as reality intrudes. The snowball can’t literally leave, yet the speaker experiences its disappearance as abandonment, which hints at a bigger childhood feeling—things you love can be there at night and gone in the morning, and it won’t feel like physics; it will feel personal.

But First It Wet the Bed: The Punchline That Explains Everything

The final line—But first it wet the bed—lands as a punchline, but it also translates the melting into a familiar domestic mess. The poem holds two meanings at once: in the speaker’s story, the snowball is rude and mischievous; in our reading, it simply melted because it was brought into bed. That contradiction is the whole charm: the speaker insists on a pet’s behavior, while the world insists on temperature. The ending doesn’t just mock the speaker; it captures how a child can protect the sweetness of an idea (a snowball companion) by turning an ordinary fact (water) into a naughty act.