master of life and death,
a wisp-haired judge whose law
would punish beak and claw.
This quote epitomizes the speaker's confident, self-satisfied tone in the first two stanzas, which turns into horror and guilt in the following stanzas. In these lines, the speaker relishes in her power over the owl. By describing herself as a “master,” the speaker not only foreshadows her shooting of the owl but distinguishes herself from the typical child, who is obedient and largely powerless. This bold language builds on the religious subtext in stanza 1; the speaker is not only “blessed by the sun” but imagines that she possesses a godlike power to control life and death.
The quote is also interesting because it reveals that the speaker is not entirely naïve about violence, weapons, and death—she understands her own plan to kill the owl, but doesn't grasp the brutality and obscenity that this will involve. She states that she wants to “punish beak and claw,” but does not reveal why she is driven to do so or whether she comprehends what this will entail (line 18). At the same time, the poem gives the reader more context because the speaker describes herself as “wisp-haired,” which is a childlike image (17). The inclusion of this adjective allows the reader to see that the speaker is not purely bloodthirsty and cruel, but is also a naïve and confused child.
by the fallen gun, a lonely
child who believed death clean
and final, not this obscene
The quote connects the owl and the child—one has been physically injured by an outside force, the other emotionally injured by her own actions. The “fallen” gun symbolizes how the child’s former confidence has also fallen, as she now regrets her prior decision to rebel. The speaker also refers to herself as “lonely,” which sharply contrasts with her description of herself in earlier stanzas as confident and powerful in her solitude—a “fiend,” “master,” and “judge.” The quote is also notable for its lack of literary elements such as metaphor or simile. Instead, the speaker straightforwardly admits that she is in fact a lonely child who had not understood the nature of death. In this line of internal dialogue, Harwood reveals the core theme of the poem: the loss of childhood innocence.
blindly closer. I saw
those eyes that did not see
mirror my cruelty
This quote presents multiple variations on the symbol of sight that illustrates the speaker’s newfound recognition of her own cruelty. At first, the speaker is unwilling to look closely at the horrifying carnage she has caused by shooting the owl: she moves “blindly closer,” using “blindness” as a metaphor for her own shock. Harwood then employs a caesura—a pause in the middle of the line—to contrast the speaker’s initial blindness with her realization of what she has done. As she moved “closer,” she “saw” the dying owl more clearly. Meanwhile, the owl’s eyes “did not see.” Together, this swirling description of both vision and blindness emphasizes that the speaker’s moral awakening has come at the cost of the owl’s life. The speaker can now “see” the cruelty inherent in shooting animals, but the owl’s lifeless eyes can no longer see at all. At the same time, the description of the owl as blind symbolically connects the owl to the speaker’s innocence. By shooting the owl, the speaker has metaphorically killed her former naïve perspective, which is now reflected in the owl’s blindness to reality. Finally, in looking at the owl the speaker clearly sees the pain that she has caused—the eyes “mirror” the speaker’s cruelty, forcing her not to stay blind to the truth but to reflect upon it. Just as a mirror shows us an image of the reality around us, the sight of the injured owl causes the speaker to acknowledge the reality of death.
