Teenage rebellion is typically portrayed in stories, films, and other genres as a testosterone-based phenomenon.  There is an overplayed need for one to acknowledge a boy’s rebellion against his father, his life direction, the “system,” in an effort to become a man, or rather an adult. However, rarely is the female addressed in such a scenario.  What happens when little girls grow up?  Do they rebel?  Do they, in a sudden overpowering rush of estrogen, deny what has been taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades?  Do they turn on their mothers?  In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.

            Olds begins the correlation of the daughter’s haircut and the idea of war early on in the poem.  The reader is first exposed to the comparison in the line, “that girl with the hair wispy as a frayed bellpull/ has been to the barber, that knife grinder/ and has had the edge of her hair sharpened.”  Olds immediately conjures up a frightful image of a barber viciously attacking her little girl’s hair.  The image is enforced with the words Olds has placed carefully within the line.  Instead of cutting her daughter’s hair, the barber sharpens it like one would a weapon.  This haircut is the daughter’s first weapon in the war between mother and daughter.  The haircut will be the first detachment of the daughter from her youth, the former “wispy” haired girl has in essence been murdered by the barber.  To further emphasize this horrible image, Olds sneaks in a tactfully placed word next to the word “barber.”  Olds gives him a follow-up description, “knife grinder.”  This phrase is not particularly pleasant and by combining it with an already wicked sounding situation such as “sharpening” one’s hair, the unpleasant feeling the vision produces becomes undeniable.  From here the tone of unease and apprehension often felt before a great battle is set.  This is not a haircut.  It is a preparation for war.

            The next image Olds puts into play is that of the vision of her daughter reborn as the enemy.  Olds describes the daughter’s hair by saying, “each strand now cuts/ both ways.  The blade of new bangs hangs over her red-brown eyes/ like carbon steel.”  This is not a typical description of hair.  Olds specifically compares the young girl’s hair to a freshly sharpened weapon.  With words such as “cuts,” “blade,” and “carbon steel,” Olds builds up an image of a lethal weapon such as a knife or perhaps sword, weapons both clearly used for battle.  Olds further describes the girl’s hair by acknowledging that “all the little/ spliced ropes are sliced.”  The line break in the poem which leaves the phrase “all the little” alone to be followed up by second line describing the sliced hair, adds to Olds image.  “All the little” appears as a memory of the mother of her former daughter, a memory that is quickly destroyed by the second image of those little strands now taking on a threatening sliced form.  In addition, the line also holds a visual separation between the two different images that occupy the mother’s same thought about her daughter’s haircut.  This literal break in the poem’s pattern further conveys the idea of a division, a separation between mother and daughter.  There is also a comparison in this line of the daughter’s former hairstyle with rope.  This comparison communicates the symbol of a daughter breaking free from the need of her mother.  A rope is an object with which to bind something.  The ropes, symbolized by the daughter’s hair, are now being sliced and broken free from their former youthful look.  In effect, this specific detail causes the reader to visualize a prisoner being cut free from a captor.  This haircut is setting the daughter free from the mother’s rule and thus widens the breach between daughter and mother.  This feeling of loss is further expressed by the mother in the line, “In her bright helmet/ she looks at me as if across a great distance.”  The reader begins to feel the mother’s sudden alienation from her daughter.  Her daughter standing in her “bright helmet” as a sort of looming figure over the mother summons the idea that the mother, formerly in a position of command, is now relegated to being the lesser of the two entities in this coming-of-age battle.  The daughter’s haircut widens the ever-growing chasm between the two participating parties in this soon-to-be great battle.  

            To further seal this idea of the haircut symbolizing a weapon of war, Olds connects the reader directly with that image of war.  In the line, “Distant fires can be/ glimpsed in the resin light of her eyes: / the watch fires of an enemy, a while before/ the war starts,” is the first and only obvious connection between this turning point between mother and daughter and war.  This is also the final image the reader is left with.  This line shows the brief moment before the beginning of a war, a last thought in the quiet, and in effect, the reader falls to an uneasy state along with the mother.  The haircut is, in essence, the preparation for the battle.  The daughter’s hair is the sharpened weapon that will later be used in defiance, a rebellion against the ties between mother and daughter.  The daughter has now become the enemy.  Metaphor is very visible in this line.  Olds uses the phrase “distant fires” as a metaphor for the future fights between mother and daughter.  The “war” is a metaphor for the daughter/mother relationship to come. 

            As a final means of expressing the mother’s view on her division in her relationship with her daughter, Olds goes outside of her general theme of war to illustrate the actuality of the situation.  The mother is acknowledging the loss of her daughter by creating the surrealistic image of the haircut as an end to the peace and the beginning of war. Occasionally in the poem, however, the reader is brought back to reality.  The line, “My daughter-as if I/ owned her,” is the mother’s realization that her little girl is no longer her little girl.  This is the reality of the situation.  Olds again addresses this issue later in the poem with the line, “My body. My daughter. I’ll have to find/ another word.”  Olds jerks the reader out of the image of war with this ever-more pressing issue that the mother is losing her daughter to time and circumstance.  The mother can no longer apply the word “my” when referring to the daughter for the daughter has become her own person.  This realization is a frightening one to the mother who then quickly dives back into her surreal vision of the daughter now being a new enemy in a world already filled with evils.  In this way it is easier for the mother to acknowledge the daughter as a threat rather than a loss.  However, this is an issue that Olds has carefully layered beneath images of war, weapons, and haircuts.

            Overall, “The Possessive” is a story of a mother coming to terms with the inevitable decay of a relationship with her daughter as her baby girl.  The daughter will always have a mother, but the mother will some day be forced to lose her child.  Youth and innocence are the only casualties in this war.