COVE

Anna Laetitia Barbauld wrote a poem called "The Caterpillar" which is another poem about her empathy towards animals. However, this story teaches more of a lesson. The narrator of this poem has had a habit of killing caterpillars, and at the beginning of this poem, she had just murdered another caterpillar family until she feels remorse for the single one that survived her attack. She is moved and decides to no longer kill caterpillars anymore after seeing this single insect bravely escaping her attacks. This poem can teach us as humans that we can always step away and break our bad habits. In this case, the narrator of Barbauld's poem learns to change her habit of killing caterpillars. At the conclusion of this poem, she even writes "Tis not virtue, Yet 'tis not weakness of a virtuous mind" (lines 41-42). To me, this means that her killing caterpillars is not virtuous, but it isn't a weakness to realize the harm of it and stop. She admits a flaw at the end, and admits that it isn't bad to change this old habit of hers and before this line, she compares her situation to a soldier in war murdering others brutally and then stopping when he too, sees one other soldier fleeing from the battlefield. While brutal actions are described in this poem, there is a general moral that humans are capable of change, even if this doesn't erase actions from the past. As humans, it is important to remember to learn from our bad habits, and remember that if we find something flawed within ourselves, we are capable of changing and growing. 

Barbauld Laetitia, Anna. "The Caterpillar." The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 11th edition, vol. D, W.W. Norton, 2012, pp. 52-53.

Beaufort, Jean. Caterpillar. Public Domain Pictures, https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=223657&pict....