In "Barn Owl" by Gwen Harwood, what language features does Harwood use to convey her point of view? What are the main themes discussed, and how are...

Barn
Owl is part one of Gwen Harwoods poem Father and Child. Harwoods language in this piece often
embraces the tension of opposites in order to demonstrate the complexity, dynamism, and
contradiction of human experience. The first two lines utilize opposing language to convey
emerging familial divergence.

Daybreak: the household
slept.
I rose, blessed by the sun.

The household
sleeps. The child rises, symbolizing the childs first steps towards independence from the
family. The close proximity of these opposing descriptors, slept and rose, suggests that
coming-of-age moments can be abrupt. In Barn Owl, coming of age is a major theme.

Another theme is the innate brutality of life. This theme pervades much of Gwen
Harwoods work. The author demonstrates the point of view that brutality exists not just in the
adult world: it manifests in childhood as well. The child is, in fact, the source of brutality
in this poem. The owl suffers when the child goes after it with the gun. And the child realizes
how brutal she has been.

I saw
those eyes that
did not see
mirror my cruelty . . .

The
realization points to another theme in this poem: loss of innocence. The child is both young and
inexperienced; simultaneously, though, she is powerful enough to inflict suffering and end a
life.

A wisp-haired judge whose law
would punish
beak and claw.

In a single sentence, the child is at once
both wisp-haired (a youthful descriptor) and a judge, an enforcer of law and punishment.
This is another example of language that features proximal opposition.

The
linguistic and thematic coexistence of opposites comes full circle in the final stanza of the
poem. In the first stanza, the child is blessed by the sun. The child perceives the sun as
pure and positive. It is a youthful, innocent perspective. Conversely, in the final stanza, the
sun ultimately contributes to the demise of the owl:

owl
blind in early sun
for what I had begun.

The
child transmutes her own blessing into destruction, a final diametric nod to the loss of
innocence.