The speaker of the poem is a mother. She describes the actions of her daughter's visit to the barber. She uses very harsh language to describe this haircut, calling the barber a "knife grinder." Right off the bat we see that the mother does not want the daughter to go through with this haircut. This is seen by the exaggeration and strong emphasis put on the level of danger involved in the haircut. When she mentions "the curtain of dark paper-cuts that veils the face," she suggests this harmfulness that is invol

The mother then starts to paint a new picture. The "girl with the hair wispy as a frayed bellpull" now has a "bright helmet." This begins to connote the notion of rivalry. Using a term even more severe than rivalry, the mother calls her conflict with her daughter a state of war.

The phrase "she looks at me as if across a great distance" describes the current relationship between mother and daughter. No longer is she in the womb, attached to the mother, but stands far from her mother, different in many ways. The possession once had has turned to its coldest point when the mother sees "watch fires of an enemy" in her daughter's eyes.

From daughter at her mother's side to enemy staring at a distance, Sharon Olds marvelously uses these figures of speech. These figures of speech link the reader to the possessive world through a mother's eyes. The reader can see and feel all that there is to see and feel because of the

Some common words found in the essay are:
Sharon Olds, figures speech, , mother daughter, daughter mother, carbon steel, sharon olds, daughter mother's,
Approximate Word count = 630
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)