AMANDA

By Robin Klein  
CENTRAL IDEA

 Deals with the upbringing of a small child Amanda

 Highlights the struggles faced by the child.
 Children should never be denied their freedom.
 Parents responsible for proper upbringing of their children.
 Upbringing involves understanding from both sides.
 Love and proper care required in nurturing of a child.

KEY POINTS 

 A great deal of patience and love required to make a child understand that he/she is
special.
 Proper understanding and right approach shown towards bad habits adopted by
children.
 Amanda yearns for freedom and choice which she cannot have due to her nagging
parents.
 Forbidden to do anything according to her will.
 Trapped within the Do’s & Don’t’s of her life.
 Life of Amanda is suffocating and limited in itself.
 Seeks freedom from the overpowering environment around her.

THEMES

1. End of childhood

 Amanda has reached the midway age between childhood and adulthood
 Growth of acne on her face
 No longer a child – bounded by responsibilities – finishing homework, cleaning her
room and her shoes.
 Wants to postpone the process of growing up.
 Withdraws into the childhood world of fantasies and fairy tales.

2. Expected behaviour of young women

 Young women like Amanda expected to be lady-like – to sit up straight, to take care
of their appearance, to be sweet and smiling.
 Scolded by the mother, chocolates taken away.
 Mother’s expectations to be prim, proper and radiant.
 Expectations – a burden for Amanda – prefers to be left alone
 Indulges in all kinds of fantasies – mermaid, orphan, Rapunzel.
  Free from all expectations in the realm of her own imagination.

LITERARY DEVICES

 Alliteration
Stop that slouching and sit up straight.
Stop that sulking at once, Amanda!
I thought I told you to clean your shoes.

 Metaphor
Orphan – who don’t have nagging parents above their head as Amanda’s.
Languid, emerald sea – languid and emerald type qualities are assigned to the sea.
Silence is golden
Freedom is sweet.

 Allusion
Mermaid – to be free and contained in their own. (Taken from fairy tales)
Rapunzel – who lived happily alone on a tower for a long time. (Fairy tale)

REFERENCE TO CONTEXT

1. (There is a languid, emerald sea,

where the sole inhabitant is me —
a mermaid, drifting blissfully.)
 
 (a) Who do these lines refer to?
(b) How is the sea?
(c) Who is the sole inhabitant of the sea?
(d) Why is this stanza bracketed?
(e) What does the person refer to want to do?

2. I am an orphan, roaming the street.

I pattern soft dust with my hushed, bare feet.
The silence is golden, the freedom is sweet)

 (a) Who longs to be an orphan?

 (b) Where is the orphan roaming?
(c) How does the speaker make designs?
 (d) What does the speaker say about silence and freedom?
 (e) What does the ‘orphan’ long to do?

SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS.

1. Who was Amanda? What idea do you form of her through the poem?
2. Why does Amanda say, ‘I am Rapunzel’? What does she promise not to do?
3. How is Amanda seen behaving when the poem starts? What does the speaker ask her not to
do?

LONG ANSWER QUESTIONS

1. How does Amanda tackle the nagging nature of her parents? Explain with examples from
the poem. What values does it portray about Amanda?
2. Discuss the importance of proper upbringing with reference to the poem Amanda by Robin
Klein.