To A Daughter Leaving Home

“To a Daughter Leaving Home” is a short poem written in by Linda Pastan, an American poet best known for her small poems pertaining to the subjects such as family life, home life, and parenthood, and her own experiences in these subjects. “To a Daughter Leaving Home” was written by Pastan in 1988. The poem itself is about a parent reflecting upon a fond memory of an event in their daughter’s life, just as their daughter is leaving home; this poem contains some literary techniques such as an extended metaphor, symbolism, a simile, onomatopoeia, and repetition. The tone of this poem is very sentimental and bittersweet as it displays how the parent, who is the speaker, has watched their daughter grow up and has now realized that they will have to let their daughter go out into the world on her own.

An extended metaphor is very similar to a regular metaphor, except that it is extended in order to attract more judgement between two ideas. In “To a Daughter Leaving Home” Pastan uses an extended metaphor to describe the relationship and experiences that the parent and the daughter has shared leading up to the

This passage contains repetition, as the word “pumping” is being repeated, Pastan uses this literary technique to describe the daughter’s determination to keep riding her bike along the pathway of life on her own. As the daughter is growing older and becoming more independent, the parent feels as though he or she will not be needed anymore in the daughter’s life and will left all alone only to reminisce upon fond memories. This goes back to the parent’s sprinting after the daughter as she goes further and further down the path, the parent feels as though he or she will have to “catch up” with their daughter, because in the parent’s eyes the daughter is growing up too