Question

What does the metaphor of bow and arrow signify with regard to the parent-children relationship?

OR

What do the bow and arrow signify in the poem ‘On Children’?

OR

How is the parent-child relationship brought out using the metaphor of bow and arrows? OR Bring out the significance of the metaphors ‘bows’, ‘arrows’and ‘archer’.

OR

“Parents are bows, children are arrows and God is the archer”. How does the poem ‘On Children’ highlight these images?

OR

‘On Children’ refers to children as arrows and parents as bows. Explain.

Answer 1

In his sermon on children, in the first part, Gibran explains to parents how they should take care of their children as ‘stewards’. In the last part of the sermon Gibran uses the metaphor of the bow and the arrows to help parents visualize their role in bringing up children.

In this metaphor, God, or the supreme power, is the archer, parents are the bows and the arrows are the children. The archer uses the bow only as an instrument to send the arrows to their target. The archer decides the trajectory and the target on the infinite path and pulls the string with all his might. As he pulls the string, the bow has to bend and yet withstand the strain and pressure caused in shooting the arrow. The bow should not snap in two. From this metaphor it becomes clear that parents serve only as an instrument or as a vehicle to help the arrow fly to its destination and parents cannot own them.

Comments

No person truly belongs to another, each person is unique. His fingerprints and mind is solely his own parents are the “bows” that send the “arrows” of their children into future. Each is beloved to God who is their creator. The archer “God” who cast the arrows wants it to go to a certain place; he really cannot make it go unless he holds the bow stable. So that the arrow will go the way he wants. In other words, parents need to be good stable role models for their children if they want them to stick to the path of success.