Fear Chapter Summary & Analysis | Analysis

Analysis

The style of the poem is very straightforward and simple, written from the first person point of view. The narrator of the poem is probably a common countrywoman evidenced by her simplistic wishes and needs. The author also gives clues about the simple life of the mother through her references to sleeping on a straw mat and rocking her child. The author moves from present tense when she declares, "I don't want them to turn..." to the future tense when the mother speculates on the outcome, "She would fly far away into the sky..."

Each of the three stanzas ends with the same two lines that began the stanza. For example, the first stanza begins and ends with, "I don't want them to turn / my little girl into a swallow." This repetition helps to validate the intensity of the mother's thoughts and fears for her child and for herself.