My Son the Man Poem Analysis

Thesis: In Sharon Olds’ poem, My Son the Man, the allusion to Houdini is important in the sense that it sets up a comparison describing the impressions of a mother who fears the ageing of her son to that of a magician who can free himself from any form of restraint.

-          Allusion

·         “Suddely [sic] his shoulders get a lot wider, the way Houdini would expand his body while people were putting him in chains…[he] snapped the padlock [and] unsnaked the chains”. Harry Houdini is arguably the most famous magician in history, and this simple allusion describes efficiently the feeling of having a son transform from childhood to adulthood. The expansion of the child’s shoulders is directly compared to Houdini’s expanding body as the child learns to maneuver through the restraints of growing up just as Houdini maneuvered the physical restraints he was placed in.

-          Simile

·         “This was not what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson”. Although this simile is not directly related to the allusion of Houdini, it provides support for the mother’s mixed and confused feelings. The mother says that this “was not what [she] had in mind”, but also accepts this fact by saying earlier, “I know I must be ready, [I must] get over my fear of men now [that] my son is going to be one”. The comparison of the son growing up to that of a trunk sprouting through the ice of the Hudson only exemplifies the significance of Houdini’s purpose in the poem: to justify the child’s actions of entering adulthood, but it also displays the mother’s complex feelings towards the situation. The simile effectively builds off of the allusion stated earlier and allows the spontaneous nature of the child growing up to be more navigable for the mother.