Don’t bite your nails, Amanda! Don’t hunch your shoulders, Amanda! Stop that slouching and sit up straight, Amanda!

(There is a languid, emerald sea, where sole inhabitant is me —- a mermaid, drifting blissfully.)

Did you finish your homework, Amanda? Did you tidy up your room, Amanda? I thought I told you to clean your shoes, Amanda!

(I am orphan, roaming in the streets. I pattern soft dust with my hushed bare feet. The silence is golden and freedom is sweet.)

Don’t eat that chocolate, Amanda! Remember your acne, Amanda! Will you please look at me when I’m speaking to you, Amanda!

(I am Rapunzel, I have not a care; life in a tower is tranquil and rare; I’ll certainly never let down my bright hair!)

Stop that sulking at once, Amanda! You’re always so moody, Amanda! Anyone would think that I nagged at you, Amanda!

✿Amanda Poem Summary✿

The poem gives us a peep into the psyche of a young girl who is not allowed to enjoy a life of her own choice. In this poem, Amanda feels that her liberty is curtailed by her mother who keeps rebuking her for one thing or the other. For example, she is commanded not to bite her nails and to sit erect without slouching.
Offended by her mother’s instructions, Amanda, defiant as she is, finds an escape into the world of imagination and considers herself to be a mermaid, swimming blissfully in a calm, green sea, all by herself with nobody around to disturb her.
From the world of dreams, she is pulled back when she is asked if she has done her homework, whether she has tidied her room and why she has not cleaned her shoes. Feeling sick of so many questions, the child turns a deaf ear to them and again imagines herself to be an orphan with no one to check and nag her. She visualises herself roaming about in the street bare-footed where there are no nagging voices and pestering individuals to curtail her freedom.
Being defiant, Amanda looks away while she is asked not to eat chocolates as they are not good for her acne. The mother immediately commands her to look her in the face when she is being talked to. This triggers more defiance in Amanda and in her imagination, she prefers to be Rapunzel, a character from the German fairy tale who was imprisoned in a tower by a witch. Rapunzel had long, golden hair which she let out of the window to her prince so that he could climb up. The idea of being a captive doesn’t bother Amanda; she rather feels that this life of solitariness would be so blissful that unlike Rapunzel she would never let down her bright hair through the window to enable some prince to liberate her.
But her blissful dream is interrupted when her mother scolds her for being moody and commands her to stop sulking. The mother fears that people will wrongly get the impression that she has been nagging her daughter. In this way, the young Amanda keeps shifting from reality to imagination and back to reality again.

Thankyou! (✿^‿^)