A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth

The speaker employs anthropomorphism through attributing intentions and emotions to household objects. The premise of the poem—the “experiment” (Line 25) the speaker imagines the child conducts—assumes that objects “don’t move by themselves” (Line 5), but that some items harbor “a willingness to travel” (Line 13) when dislodged. The speaker adopts a sophisticated tone and advanced diction to explain a childlike sentiment: the idea that objects might want to move. The speaker maintains a distance, an alliance with the reader who also knows that the child’s real experiment pertains to her own agency. She sees the effect she can have on her environment, and she responds to this power. By giving the “creamer, spoons, bowl” (Line 15) the capacity to be “shaking with desire” (Line 16), the speaker introduces the concept of responsible action. Once the child realizes her actions have consequences for these objects, she might choose to be either benevolent or brutal. Existing in a world where “Mr. Newton still has no say” (Line 23), the child senses no accountability yet. Through the speaker’s interpretation of her actions, the child only wonders “what form of motion” (Line 18) the objects will choose, as if the objects also have agency. Toward the end of the poem, the objects sit “trembling on the brink” (Line 19), with excitement or fear. The speaker invites the reader to sympathize with the objects on the table as they await their fate, in the hands of a little girl unburdened with rules or knowledge.