"To a Daughter Leaving Home" By Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan lived a very normal life; she went to school where the main focus of the curriculum was ethics. Her knowledge of ethics later showed in her pieces of work. Pastan started a family and stopped writing for a while, but then in 1960 picked up writing again, publishing some of her best works.

In this poem, Linda Pastan writes about a small piece of a story in which the speaker is narrating. We know from lines one and two that the person who is being referred to by the speaker was much younger in the story being told. The situation of this poem is a speaker, probably a mother, speaking to her daughter about leaving and moving on with her life. The daughter acts as the direct audience of this poem, being the focus of the mother's concern. The poet creates a tone that shows a sense of longing or despair, causing the poem to create an effect that portrays a mother caring for her daughter and remembering a time in which the daughter was portraying a time of growth in her life. The significance within the context of this poem is the idea of remembering and sending someone off to a new chapter of their life. The mother demonstrates acts of care and concern for her daughter, that in my view point, seems to be leaving for college or moving out of the house for a specific reason. This poem reflects more situation than setting in its context, but based on the situation the setting would be several years ago, outside somewhere.