Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje are both Canadian authors who have achieved worldwide recognition in the past century. It is known that they often read each other’s work for inspirations. The two poems, “A Sad Child” (Atwood) and “To a Sad Daughter” (Ondaatje) were written within one decade, between the years of 1985 to 1995. In spite of similar titles, the two poems are fundamentally unlike each other. The poetic devices, structures, tones and themes of these two poems can be compared and contrasted.
Although both poets use similar poetic devices such as imagery and similes, the two poems vary greatly in meaning. For example, two very contrasting applications of imagery in “Sad Child” are the description of the lawn party (stanza 3) and death (stanza 4 & 5). The lawn party gives a very optimistic and cheerful feeling amongst all the sadness in the poem; however, it is immediately contrasted by the author’s statement, “I am not the favorite child” (line 20). As for death, the last two stanzas focus on opposite ways of dying. One is a peaceful form of death in a bed, (“blanket” [25], “pillow” [28]); while the other is losing life in a car crash (“ burning car” [25], “tarmac” [27]). A profound simile can be found in line 4: “or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll”, urging us to find comfort in, and accept the inevitable sadness. In “A Sad Child”, Ondaatje uses imagery as well in the first 5 lines stanza 3. He suggests that his daughter will always have support in her life, “swimming beside [her] ship”, and should listen to others’ advice, the “siren”. If she does not, she will not move forward in life.
The two poems also have a similar structure, although “To a Sad Daughter” is much more extensive than “A Sad Child”. The work of Michael Ondaatje consists of 6 stanzas, with the following pattern of number of lines: 11, 14, 11, 25, 11, 14. Margaret Atwood’s poem has 5 stanzas, with the line pattern is 5, 5, 10, 5, 5. As seen in the construction of both poems, the “middle” stanza doubles in the number of lines. Another similarity between the two center stanzas is the focus of content; both refer to growing up. In “Sad Child”, the speaker sadly contemplates that she is “not the favorite child” (20), probably because she has gotten severely angry at by her parents due to the “ice cream smear” (18) on her “new dress” (19). This indicates that she (the speaker) is most likely not the youngest child, since the youngest children are usually the parents’ favorites and can get away with mistakes and messes without consequences. Therefore, as the speaker is growing up, her parents’ expectations require her to be increasingly careful and well-mannered when it comes to eating desserts at lawn parties. As for “To A Sad Daughter”, the speaker, who is presumably a father, chats to his daughter, who is 16 years old (38) about growing up. He gives her one crucial piece of advice, “ride the ceremonies until they grow dark” (41-44), meaning she should enjoy childhood while she can. Also, in line 60, the speaker reflects on “all the possible worlds” in which his daughter can find opportunities as she matures.
Despite the fact that some similar poetic devices as well as homologous structures are found in both of the poems, the essential natures of the two poems are quite different. Margaret Atwood states in her poem that depression is universal and inevitable, especially when a child is growing up. This concept is summarized in the last two lines of the poem “none of us is; or else we all are”. In other words, sadness cannot exist only in some fragments of the human population. It either lives in none of us, or a part of it lives in us all. In addition, Atwood lists ways to deal with depression (8-10), and implies that the only way to escape it is death (23-28). On the other hand, Michael Ondaatje conveys the experience of raising a daughter from a fatherly point of view. “To a Sad Daughter “ expresses the notion of unconditional parental love and support throughout a child’s life. Many examples are scattered throughout the poem, including “I like all your faults, even your purple moods” (15-16), meaning that the father is willing to accept his daughter even with her dark sides and flaws. Another vibrant example is the last three lines of the fifth stanza, “How you.. secrets forever”. This statement exhibits that no matter what the child will choose to do with her life, her father will always be there to offer support in her decisions. “A Sad Child” and “To a Sad Daughter” were both written during the same era, by the poets of the same generation, who applied alike poetic devices and structures to their poems. However, the overall contents of the poems are nowhere near similar, resulting in disparate themes. While Atwood insists that we are destined to suffer from sadness at one point or another, Ondaatje conveys the sense that parental love will remain unquestionable no matter what the child is like.