Ethics+By+Linda+Pastan

Linda Pastan is writing about the internal change that everyone undergoes when growing up, in her poem __Ethics__. When young it can be difficult to put yourself into other people shoes, to think abstractly about questions that have no right or wrong answer yet as we grow up we learn how to do these things and through it gain wisdom and insight. The first part of the poem takes place when the speaker is young, still in grade school, and when confronted with the question in this poem does not pay much attention to it because it seems so remote. By the end of the poem the speaker finds herself "before a real Rembrandt [painting]," (lines 17-18) grown up, getting old and it is only now that she makes her realization "that woman and painting and season are almost one and all beyond saving by children," (lines 22-24). This is the kind of internal change that Linda Pastan is talking about in this poem.