Parenting and Punishment

In Stephen Dunn’s “The Arm” and Sharon Olds’ “The Clasp” poems, they dwell into the themes of child-parent relationships. They both dwell into it, yet in different perspectives of parenting and punishment.

In “The Arm”, the narrator is strolling alongside a pond at a park when he came across a doll’s arm. He pondered over the arm, like he would do with other objects he’d find when walking his dog, and went beyond the fact that it was lost to rather how it had been broken off. He imagined the doll had possibly belonged to a boy whose father had broken his doll to better influence the boy into playing with more masculine toys. The imaginary father hated his son’s decision to play with dolls, and felt it necessary to punish him, but despite the boy’s doll being violated, he ended up loving much more. The boy felt for the broken doll, possible because he had received the same harsh abuse by his own father just because of his preferences pertaining toys. The father, in this case, felt an importance of forcing his opinion on his child for the sake of himself and his pride.

“The Clasp” is an entirely different story. The parent-child relationship is the main story, and instead of being an uncomfortable relationship, the mother and child are affectionate and loving towards each other. The narrator’s daughter was pushing her son, who was still a baby, onto his face for the second time when the narrator harshly clasped the daughter’s hand in a firm grip. She held it tightly for a moment until the daughter understood not to ever, ever, do it again. The daughter had obviously never felt such malice before by her own mother, and was astonished beyond words that her mother had used such force. The narrator had a far better motive than the father of the previous poem. She had to definitely make her daughter understand the seriousness of what she was doing with her other child in mind.

“The Arm” is about a father’s desire for a perfect child of his standards, and punishes his son to make it so. “The Clasp” on the other hand is not about preferences but an essential action that would protect her son from suffocating by the hand of his sister. Both are different examples of how parenting can occur, and they deliver themselves as bittersweet or cruel. Parents can have the best of intentions, for themselves or others, but it depends on the parent and situation.