B. Wordsworth

“B. Wordsworth” is narrated by an unnamed boy. The use of the boy’s perspective frames the old poet as a strange and bewildering figure. As a youngster, the boy is not jaded by society. His mother is suspicious and cynical about the world, refusing to buy poems and beating the boy when he spills fruit juice on his shirt. From her perspective, Wordsworth is an eccentric who cannot be trusted. From her son’s perspective, however, the poet is the key to understanding the strangeness of a world. When they stare at the stars, for example, the boy realizes that something that has always been part of his life is infused with rich and mystical beauty. Wordsworth can reveal the wonders of the everyday world to the boy because he is not yet inured to the world around him.

The contrast is stark between the boy’s growing appreciation for the world and his mother’s cynicism. Though she is mentioned often, the boy’s father is not mentioned at all. He is either dead or absent, and the mother has been left to raise the boy by herself. She does not have time to think about the bees, the stars, or the overgrown garden at the poet’s house. Her mind is focused on practical matters such as the cleanliness of her son’s clothes and her ability to help poor people by giving them food. The boy’s mother is not a bad person–she is portrayed as charitable and caring–but the responsibility placed upon her as a single parent has hardened her to the world. Her life lacks an element of tenderness and profundity.

The poet becomes a surrogate father figure to the boy, teaching him about the world and becoming an important male role model in his life. The relationship is reciprocal. The boy’s sense of wonder and sincere interest in the world echoes the poet’s deceased wife. Wordsworth recaptures some of the richness and meaning that he lost with her death, experiencing the joy of sharing the world with another person. The boy becomes the son that Wordsworth and his wife never had. The surrogate relationships allow the two characters to navigate the tragedies in their lives. They come to depend on each other and enjoy each other’s company. Whereas the boy’s mother never replaces her husband, the boy and Wordsworth find something to replace what they lost. Their bond is strong because they are reminded of their past, and they can share each other’s tragic burdens.

At the end of the story, however, the elderly poet tells the boy that the story about his wife was a lie. He frames the revelation as a great joke, though he does not appear to be laughing. Laying alone on his bed, Wordsworth is forced to confront his failure. He has not written the poem that he hoped to write, nor has he shared his literature with the world. Instead, he is dying alone and filled with regret. He wants to save the boy from a similar fate, so he tries to sever the bond they have made by telling the boy that he had lied to him.

By saying that the story was a lie, Wordsworth tries to introduce cynicism into the boy’s life to harden him against the challenges of the future. He fails, however, to realize the strength of what he has created. Wordsworth may not have written his poem, but he opened the boy’s eyes to the beauty of the world. The boy’s new perspective has been shaped by the poet’s spoken words and the example of his life. Wordsworth may not have changed the world as he once hoped, but he changed the way one boy sees the world. He will never be able to take back the poetry he has inserted into the boy’s mind. The boy has been affected as if he had read the poem Wordsworth wanted to write. Even though his house is knocked down and his garden demolished, the poet lives on through the memory of a young boy whose eyes were opened to the beauty of the world around him.