Richard Wilbur's poem "The Boy in the Window" describes a young boy looking at the snowman he built outside his window at dusk. Noticing the cold outdoor environment in which his snowman must spend the night, the boy cries; however, the poem reveals that the snowman's reaction to his surroundings is quite different. As this divergence is the central tension that drives the poem, one could argue that “Boy at the Window” is a poem about interpretation and misinterpretation. Although the reader expects the boy, as a rational, thoughtful human, to formulate an accurate understanding of the snowman, it is ironically the snowman who has the more astute powers of observation. The structure of the poem, with its two parallel stanzas, evokes the binary oppositions on which “Boy at the Window” functions; the most important of these binaries is the human/inhuman hierarchy, which Wilbur subverts by privileging the snowman's point of view over that of the boy. Ultimately, as the title of the poem reveals, the poem relies on the snowman's interpretation of the boy he sees at the window, rather than the boy's perception of the snowman . Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In many ways, Wilbur initially parallels the boy and the snowman. The image of the boy and the personified snowman facing each other and examining each other through the window indicates that they could be read almost as mirror images of each other. Furthermore, the boy and the snowman perform the same actions in the poem: they “see” each other (1, 11) and both cry over the other's state. The simultaneous crying also suggests that the boy and the snowman feel a bond of empathy for each other; in the poem's shortest sentence, Wilbur even notes that the snowman "is moved" by the sight of the boy (11). The form of the poem, with its two juxtaposed stanzas of equal length, evokes the image of the boy and the snowman facing each other and also supports the idea that they should be read as equal and comparable figures. Despite the superficial establishment of the boy and the snowman as parallel figures, however, aspects of the poem's form, such as the rhyme scheme, actually provide the first clues to their separation and disparity. Line 8, in the first stanza, and line 10, in the second, both contain a rhyme which continues on the break in the stanza and thus bridges the gap between the two stanzas: line 8 ends with “Paradise », while line 10 ends with “die”. Although the words are positioned close enough to be recognized as a continuation of the established rhyme pattern, they form a counter-rhyme instead of a perfect rhyme; the idea that the two stanzas are connected by rhyme first suggests that the boy and the snowman are not as related as they initially appear or as the reader expects. Further emphasizing this divide between the two characters, the poem is filled with contrasts that reveal that the boy and the snowman come from fundamentally different environments. The most obvious way in which Wilbur emphasizes this difference is in the diction of the first two and last two lines, which describe their respective environments. Wilbur contrasts the “twilight and cold” of the snowman's outside world with the “light” and “warmth” inside the boy's house (2, 16). In addition, the snowman is completely “alone”, while the boy is “surrounded by such love” (1, 15-6). These contrasting binary pairs add a level of tension or complexity to the poem's superficial sense of empathy and connection. Wilbur goes beyond simply evoking the binary oppositions of dark/light, heat/cold, and loneliness/love in the poem and, instead, subverts and complicates their hierarchical structure. In the last line of the poem, "such heat, such light, such love and such fear," Wilbur lists the privileged or positive halves of these binary oppositions. (e.g., "light" is always privileged over to darkness, and “heat” is always favored over “cold”) (16). The sudden interjection of the word "fear", which is a negative concept, immediately disrupts the image of warmth and happiness that previously characterized the boy's environment. The position of "fear" as the last word of the poem, coupled with the idea that there is "so much" of this fear, also causes the reader to reconsider the initial, positive nature of the descriptors surrounding the boy's situation, subverting their privilege. position in their binary pair. The subversion of these minor hierarchies in the poem sets up the major irony of the poem, the subversion of the human/inhuman binary pair. Although one might expect the boy, as a rational, thinking human, to have a better understanding of his world than the snowman, an inanimate object, the poem actually proves the opposite. In fact, the first stanza posits a number of the boy's assumptions about the snowman that the second stanza contradicts, indicating that the boy has misinterpreted the snowman and his situation. The boy judges that the snowman has "tarmac eyes," while in the second stanza, Wilbur reveals that the snowman's eyes are actually "soft" (6, 13). Additionally, the boy interprets the snowman's "look" as an indication of his displeasure with the cold and wind (7); however, the second stanza reveals that the snowman is actually "pleased" and that "going inside" would result in his "death" or melt him (9-10). Finally, the boy's assumption that the snowman's gaze is "forsaken by God" suggests that he does not realize that the snowman, in the second stanza, is actively looking back and examining the boy at his turn (7). The phrase stating that the boy's "tearful sight can barely reach" the snowman ultimately indicates that the boy's way of seeing or interpreting the snowman is lacking (5). Wilbur highlights the boy's lack of vision or understanding through the use of two biblical allusions. in the first stanza. The first possible allusion occurs in the verse describing "a night of gnashing and great groaning", the diction of which perhaps recalls the parable of the ten talents from Matthew's gospel in which unbelievers are cast out to a place characterized with “lamentations and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 25:30). The final and perhaps most obvious allusion is the comparison of the last two lines of the first stanza, in which the snowman looks at the boy with a "look / like that which Adam gave to heaven" ( 7-8). Again, just like the first allusion, this comparison emphasizes a biblical situation in which a sinner has been cast out and punished; this comparison suggests that the boy views the snowman in the same way, as someone who was forcibly thrown out into the cold. Reading the second stanza, however, indicates that this is a misinterpretation of the snowman's reaction, because "frozen water is his »..