Joshua Gonsalves wrote an article about William Wordsworth’s poem “The Idiot Boy.” The article is titled “Reading Idiocy: Wordsworth’s The Idiot Boy.” This is a very nice strait forward, to the point title. Joshua Gonsalves begins the article by telling how much William Wordsworth enjoyed his poem “The Idiot Boy” As Wordsworth tells here, “I wrote the poem with exceeding pleasure and whenever I read it I read it with pleasure”. Gonsalves begins to explain why Wordsworth had this great love with this poem in particular. He tells us that its is because the poem reminds him of his mother how recently passed away He then goes on breaking down the poem and describing it in a great detail.
After reading “The Idiot Boy” I can see why Wordsworth enjoyed this poem so much. Joshua Gonsalves argues that the idiot at heart of this poem is not as the reader expects, the boy, but his mother. You first assume that the boy is the idiot especially while looking at the title of the poem. Once you actually read the poem all the way through you can see that the mother is actually quite crazy in her own way. In the poem it appears that she looses her mind as she yells into the distance over and over and then later runs into the woods and finds a place to weep. Maybe this is Wordsworth’s way of describing his own mother. In the poem we find that William Wordsworth has opened up his feminine side in a way to write about the mother Betty Foy. As he writes the poem he had to of used a great amount of mother-love thinking. Wordsworth creates Betty Foy as a character who openly shows her love towards her son. This is not the first time that Wordsworth has used Betty Foy as a character in a poem. He also used this character in his poem “The Mad Mother.” Again in “The Mad Mother” Betty Foy lives for her boy. She also appears wild or crazy in the poem “The Mad Mother.” Here we see the mother appears to be the true idiot again. Wordsworth seems to have some deep emotion with his poem “The Idiot Boy” because is says many times that he enjoys it so much. Here he says, “I never wrote anything with so much glee.”
There have been a huge amount of comments on the actual character Johnny From “The Idiot Boy.” A majority of these comments share the same general idea that it is unnatural that a person in a state of complete idiotism should excite the warmest feelings of attachment. I agree that Wordsworth creates Johnny in a way that makes him seem so delighted even with his current problems. Johnny truly never losses his happiness even when he is lost in the woods. Wordsworth does an amazing job changing the way we look at Johnny who in the beginning of the poem, seams that he is sad and depressed because if his idiocy. Then after reading the poem you see that he is very happy and content to just have his mother around. This is why I believe that Wordsworth is telling the story of his life that he had longed for, the life that he never got due to his mothers death. This could partially explain why he loved this particular poem so much. I see Wordsworth is having is mother play the role of Betty Foy, as she is very loving and emotional, and can even come across as a little bit crazy at times. Wordsworth portrays himself as Johnny. Even with his current problems he is overjoyed, and has great satisfaction while being around his mother. This poem truly shows the love that Wordsworth has for his mother who died when he was just 8 years old. William Wordsworth is trying to tell a story of his life and how happy and loving his life would be if his mother were still alive.
