*Horizons* different meaning?

Question

The wide horizons of the Norfolk coast are an uncomfortable fit for the low horizons of a child.

I'd like to know if there is a certain "wordplay" in the sentence.Does the author use the same word in different meanings?

Answer 1

Yes, the author uses the same word that has different meanings.

The first "horizon" means:

the apparent junction of earth and sky.

And the second one means:

range of perception or experience

Since a child is short (and lacks experience), (s)he can't have as high horizons as adults.

Answer 2

In your sentence from Coastlines: The Story Of Our Shore by Patrick Barkham, the author goes on to say:

The wide horizons of the Norfolk coast are an uncomfortable fit for the low horizons of a child.

And so my early memories of the coast are not snapshots of a picture-postcard idyll but epic struggles up mountainous dunes, sand blowing in my eyes, marram grass whipping my legs. The beach was a wind-blasted horror and the salt marsh was where Daddy dug big holes in which to deposit our smelly buckets of poo. Children are conservative adherents to routine and security and my one happy memory is of playing with my Matchbox cars on the cobbled area outside the Hut, which faced south and was mercifully sheltered from the north wind.

The author is not necessarily using a "wordplay" on horizons, but may be making a contrast between the vastness of the natural sea horizon which can be seen from the cliffs of Hunstanton in Norfolk, England

or from Scolt Head Island (where the story takes place)

and the microcosm of the attention of a child whose main concern is playing with his toy cars.

Usually, one must look "up" to see the horizon and this is contrasted with looking down at the toy cars, the "low" horizon.

The phrase "low horizon" would ordinarily mean limited opportunity or limited potential in contrast to "limitless horizon" when referring to a child, but nothing in the text seems to point to that intention.