To a Daughter Leaving home by Linda Pastan and Death of a Young Son by Drowning by Margaret Atwood both apply imagery and symbolism to exemplify the difficulties of being a parent. These poems describe moments and instances that no parent wants to consider. They confirm that being a parent can be the hardest job in the world. Both poems use similar styles of imagery and symbolism; they focus on two very different painful situations that some parents must experience. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayTo a Daughter Leaving Home describes an unfortunate situation in which a mother realizes that her daughter no longer needs her to guide her through life. It is never mentioned where the daughter is headed, instead, the poem focuses on the mother's feelings and how difficult it is to see her daughter go. She remembers the first taste of independence her daughter got years ago when she learned to ride a bike without her mother's help. She describes her fear when her daughter first rode off on her bicycle as she was left behind while her daughter disappeared from sight. She states that her daughter has become “more fragile with distance” (16-17). This sentence shows his feelings of fear and anxiety that this situation has evoked. He has to watch his daughter slip from his grasp and accept the fact that she is leaving. She is nervous about her daughter going out into the world alone because she is easily fragile and vulnerable without her mother by her side. Death of a Young Son by Drowning portrays a far worse parental nightmare that no parent wants to imagine. It focuses on the emptiness felt after the loss of a child. The mother watched his hopes and dreams fade away as "his feet slipped on the shore, the currents took him" (7-8). It is obvious that she was very fond of her son and looking forward to this journey with him and losing him meant “The dreamed sails collapsed, ragged” (26-27). This phrase is used to describe how he feels after experiencing the loss of his son. Atwood used the images to further explain the mother's personal experience the day her son died. He had to watch his son disappear without being able to do anything to save him because everything happened so quickly. She describes seeing him when “he was hanging in the river like a heart. They recovered the submerged body” (17-18). His in-depth knowledge of the incident portrays a very dark side of his son's unexpected death. To a Daughter Leaving Home and Death of a Young Son by Drowning both rely prominently on symbolism. In To a Daughter Leaving Home, the author uses the memory of the first time her daughter rode a bicycle alone to symbolize that she and her daughter must go their separate ways. In the last line of the poem he makes an analogy by saying "the hair that waves behind you like a waving handkerchief" (21-24). Connect your currently leaving daughter with the first time she rode a bike. At that moment, it occurred to her that her daughter was going to leave and she should be strong and let her go. This analogy was an important symbol mentioned in the poem because it makes the reader understand why he was thinking about his daughter's first bike ride and how that moment compares to the current situation. Margaret Atwood also used an abundance of symbolism in her poem Death of a Young Son by Drowning. He is trying to show the idea of ​​the river symbolizing life itself by saying “he successfully navigated the perilous river of his own birth” (1-2). Through this sentence he conveys that his son was born thanks to the way.