Sympathetic Portrait of a Child
Sympathetic Portrait of a Child - meaning Summary
Innocence Confronting Accusation
The speaker observes a ten-year-old described as "the murderer’s little daughter," watching her nervous, contradictory gestures as she tries to hide while drawing attention. The child alternates shy concealment and a provocative smile that the speaker feels as a knife. The poem presents a tension between imposed guilt and childlike innocence, focusing on the speaker’s puzzled sympathy and the unsettling way the child’s behavior implicates both herself and those who look at her.
Read Complete AnalysesThe murderer’s little daughter who is barely ten years old jerks her shoulders right and left so as to catch a glimpse of me without turning round. Her skinny little arms wrap themselves this way then that reversely about her body! Nervously she crushes her straw hat about her eyes and tilts her head to deepen the shadow— smiling excitedly! As best as she can she hides herself in the full sunlight her cordy legs writhing beneath the little flowered dress that leaves them bare from mid-thigh to ankle— Why has she chosen me for the knife that darts along her smile?
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