A Sad Child

A Sad Child By Margaret Atwood

You're sad because you're sad.
It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.
Well, all children are sad but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.
Forget what?

Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that was done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.

My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you're trapped in your overturned body
under a blanket or burning car,
and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside your head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are.


Smart allic is a prominant voice within. She acts like its no big deal that the child is sad. " Go see a shrink or take a pill, or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll you need to sleep. " she captures the feeling of a young child "hugging" the sadness like a doll. As though its supposed to happen to every child, which maybe it does, yet maybe it doesn't have to. This poem doesn't just refer to a child, but the society as a whole. We think that buying things will make us happier. The voice changes to matter of factly. " when it comes right down to it..." The poem says towards the end "... and said to yourself in the bathroom, i am not the favorite child" all child feel this way somehow at some point in their life, and it carries on throught out life whether it be at work or in the family. We as people always want to be the favorite of someone. The poem then takes a turn of voice towards sympathy. Saying that either none of us are the favorite child or all of us are.