"Wit's end," by Daisy Fried is about a father pained by the fact that his "baby" spends countless hours in the bathroom doing inane things like shaving her legs and applying tons of makeup. The poem clearly demonstrates both the success the cosmetic companies are having with their target audiences and how girls use makeup as a means to cut themselves off from their fathers and show who is boss.

The "beauty" (pun intended) of the poem "Wit's end" are the images that can be quickly visualized by anyone having lived with a female

The best part of this poem is that in eleven stanzas Fried creates an entire scene, actually short story, about a family setting. The reader can easily view what the situation looks like. How the daughter appears in the bathroom and what the room looks like; the appearance of the father and his facial expressions outside the door as he peers into her bathroom "invading my real room;" and how these expressions change as he tries everything to get her to change her behavior.

Of course, anything that the father offers-double his daughter's money on all the cosmetics and other "stuff"-will not be acceptable. In fact, it just makes her more adamant to do her own thing.

Of course, the father knew teenage years would change his little girl. How much, he did not realize. Or why. Yet the poem even mentions the Sassy, Seventeen, Glamour that most likely have their impact along wi

Some common words found in the essay are:
Daisy Fried, Seventeen Glamour, Teenage Glamour, , course father, little girl,
Approximate Word count = 594
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)