The Sea

The sea is mentioned metaphorically as the speaker compares her experience of waiting for salvation as a captain’s wife looking out to the sea. This puts the speaker at a divide between two landscapes, with the sea representing the wild unknown. Like the sea, however, the speaker’s past experiences cannot be traversed; she can only look at them from afar.

Clothing

Clothing is mentioned both literally and figuratively, with the speaker stating that she feels “corset[ed]” by society (Line 40). This is juxtaposed against Peter Pan’s “cobwebs and skeletal leaves” (Line 30). Peter’s clothing is evocative of freedom, while Wendy’s represents constraint.