My View on "in Just--"

After reading “in Just--” by e.e. cummings, I realize how complex yet how simple poetry can truly be.  When I read this poem by myself I became extremely confused at what the poem was trying to say, however, after discussing with the class I now understand the meaning.  This poem is about a devil-like creature stealing children’s childhoods and forcing them into maturity.  The sudden change in the poem from describing the lead character as “balloonman” to “balloonMan” shows a quick shift into maturity where he is becoming an actual man rather than a boy, just like the four children he changes turns from children to adults.  This transition is foreshadowed earlier on in the poem when the formatting of “far and wee” changes three times.  First, the “far” is separated from “and wee,” then “far and wee” are all separated, and finally the words in “far/and/wee” are each given their own lines, which shows the further separation of childhood and adulthood; they soon become completely independent from each other.  The balloonMan is also described as “goat-footed,” which is a quite obvious representation of the devil in its true form.  The formatting around this stanza is interesting since the lines create an image of steps.  These steps represent the changing of “levels.”  Steps are a transition from one floor to another in literal terms, but in the context of the poem they represent the transition from a level of childhood to a level of adulthood.  The transition is brought on by the balloonman, meaning that the balloonman is represented as the steps of life; forcing these children into adulthood.

The setting of April is interesting since April is rainy and “puddle-wonderful,” which represents a transformation.  The word “mud-/luscious” is meant to show the transformation after the rain or storm; the dirt becomes mud, meaning that there is a full transition, a rebirth.  This could also represent the rebirth of the children since they start April as children and end as adults.  When “bettyandisbel come dancing/from hop-scotch and jump-rope,” they are abandoning their childhood games to follow the man who will transform them; the same idea stands for “eddieandbill” too since they “come/running from marbles and/piracies.”  The abandonment on the childhood toys and games and the choice to follow the balloonman shows that they are willing to make the change and become adults.  Due to the fact that the balloonman is thought of as such an evil, negative figure, the poet could possibly be a parent speaking of his or her child that has now fully bloomed into an adult; to the parent, their child’s childhood has been ripped away from not only the children, but also the parents.  This “balloonman” could be a figure made up by the parent’s subconscious in order to figure out a way to explain why the children would want to grow into adults rather than dealing with the fact that the children are making their own choice to grow up and move further from the childhood that parents wish would last forever.