Point of View

“I want to go back” is told from the point of view of a speaker who considers multiple viewpoints. These include his own, all of humanity, and nature. The poem begins in the first-person singular as the speaker declares his desire to turn back the clock to an unblemished past free from pain. The speaker switches into the first-person plural to represent all humans when he states that “we all” wish to go back to the beginning (3). This conveys a shared experience. It also shows that the speaker is capable of contextualizing himself as part of a collective instead of solely as an individual. This multiplicity appears also in the variety of stances the speaker expresses. For instance, in response to his own desire, he definitively states, “I’m wrong” to think that beginnings do not also hold pain (6). He turns to nature to clarify...