A Caterpillar's Struggle to Survive: Revolutionary Allusions in Barbauld's Poem Connor Lawrence Jacobsen College

Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s poem, “The Caterpillar'' is a 29 line poem written in 1771 amidst turmoil in the American colonies, which at first look details an observer struggles to decide whether or not they are justified in killing a caterpillar, evidently after said observer has just killed many other caterpillars with pesticides. However, upon close reading the poem may reveal a more sinister narrative, which could help to identify the observer further than assuming that they are a personification of the author. Since the poem was written in the run-up to the American Revolution, the poem may actually be representative of war, and the caterpillar is a significant symbol in this.

Caterpillars are a common literary symbol particularly when used to convey ideas of childhood or innocence, as a caterpillar has yet to take on its final form of adulthood. In fact, the poem opens with “[n]o, helpless thing, I cannot harm thee now; // [d]epart in peace, thy little life is safe ''(Barbauld lines 1-2). This line may very well depict an observer’s reaction to a caterpillar, but it may also serve to show a soldier after a battle observing a surviving child. The brutalities of war are no secret, and to find a child after committing what may...