Break

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1990

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Childhood Innocence

The concept of childhood innocence refers to the state of naïveté or simplicity characteristic of youth. Children are often shielded from the harsh realities of the world by their parents, given time to play and foster their sense of self in relative safety. Laux speaks from the position of the responsible adult, exploring the theme of childhood innocence by comparing herself to her young daughter.

Laux writes at length about how “the child / circles her room, impatient / with her blossoming” (Lines 10-12), not yet aware that this is the simplest and sweetest part of life. Laux notes how her daughter is oblivious to her privilege, “tired / of the neat house, the made bed, / the good food” that her parents provide for her (Lines 12-14). This innocence stands in stark contrast to the speaker’s position as a mature adult, and yet, Laux is not perturbed by her daughter’s actions. On the contrary, Laux lets her daughter “brood,” giving her the space and time to be young, unencumbered by the responsibilities and anxieties of adulthood (Line 14). The theme of childhood innocence reveals Laux’s maternal instinct to preserve her daughter’s innocence as long as possible because she will start to put together the pieces of the real world soon enough.

Loss of Innocence

The loss of childhood innocence is an inevitable and integral part of coming of age. This loss is characterized by the experiences in a person’s life that foster a greater awareness of the societal ills, pain, and suffering present within the world. Laux is adamant about letting her daughter “brood,” protecting her from losing her innocence too soon because she herself already has (Line 14). Laux juxtaposes her own loss, “back turned” but never fully oblivious to the “world that is crumbling,” to the one she wants to create for her daughter (Lines 17-18). The puzzle (see: Symbols and Motifs “The Puzzle”) symbolizes this attempt at control, representing Laux’s shifting emotions in relation to her and her daughter’s respective positions in the world. Adulthood brings with it the rhetoric of requirement: Laux knows that, regardless of her own worries and desires to return to a state of innocence, she is “required to return to” the task at hand, raising her daughter to be able to handle the world in due time (Line 20).

Private Versus Public Sphere

Laux blurs the lines between the private and public spheres in “Break,” showing how the harsh realities of the outside world infiltrate her personal life. The public sphere is centered on society: It is a place where open discussion and debate occur, while the private sphere is centered on the family. Laux subverts common representations of the private sphere as confining, instead describing her home and family as her biggest place of safety. The theme of the private versus the public sphere speaks directly to the concept of innocence Laux weaves throughout the poem, revealing her protective nature as a mother and writer.

“Break” also navigates the public and private spheres by embracing confessional poetry with a lowercase “c.” The Confessional verse of poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton merged the private and public so that once-taboo subjects like abortion, suicide, depression, and marriage problems became private matters made public through verse. Another major Confessional poet, Robert Lowell, went as far as to copy private letters from his wife verbatim—and without permission—into his sonnet sequence “The Dolphin,” thus making the private a public affair for art’s sake, a move that became a scandal and that begged for many an important ethical question about turning life into art (Mallon, Thomas. “Marriage, Betrayal, and the Letters Behind ‘The Dolphin.’” The New Yorker, 2019).

Laux, who acknowledges the importance of both the public and the private, utilizes everyday moments that might seem private—completing a puzzle with her husband while their child pouts—to say something about the larger, public world. Laux’s confessional stance in her poems hints at the fact that much of what poets write—or what becomes published, rather—naturally begins with the private (a poet’s thoughts, observations) and then becomes public. Likewise, public events, such as the dangers of the outside world or news snippets, make their way into private thoughts. Laux’s poems show that there’s a healthy way for all involved to critique both the public and the private without overstepping ethical bounds or crafting poems so specific to a poet’s inner thoughts that the public can’t identify with a poem’s message.