In Anne Bradstreet's poem "The Author of His Book", the dominant metaphor is the image of a child being born and cared for. These birth images express the speaker's complex attitude by demonstrating that the speaker's low regard for his work and his actions are contradictory. The first effect of birth imagery is to present the speaker's book as a reflection of what he sees in himself. Unfortunately, the "child" displays crippling imperfections and handicaps, which represent what the speaker sees as profound flaws and imperfections in himself. She is not only embarrassed but ashamed of these defects, even considering them "unsuitable for the light". Although he feels disgusted by his shortcomings, the speaker understands that his book is the fruit of his "weak brain", and that the deplorable errors it displays are therefore his own. When the speaker's book is returned by the publisher, the speaker's attempt to "wash the face" of her son only worsens the image of herself she sees in him. Washing the child, scrubbing away an imperfection, and stretching his joints but failing to improve his imperfections all contribute to an image of the speaker rewriting his book, desperately trying to raise its quality up to his own high standards, but discovering in the process that it's imperfections and mistakes are too deep to be corrected, like his. In the second half of the poem, a new aspect of the speaker's attitude is shown. In line 17, she wants to improve the ugliness of her "baby" by giving him new clothes; however, she is too poor to do so, having "nothing but home-spun cloth" with which to dress her son. In the final stanza, the speaker reveals poverty as the reason she allowed her book to be sent to a publisher in the first place (sending her "son" into the world). This makes it seem like his attitude contradicts his actions.