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More handpicked essays just for you.
Poems about the relationship between mother and child
Mother to son literary devices
Role of mother simple essay
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In Rita Dove’s “Daystar,” Dove describes an unnamed mother’s repetitive and exhausting daily routine to reflect the unsatisfying role that women play in society. The woman in the poem fulfills her duties as a mother by performing her chores and watching after her children, but at the end of the day, feels empty. Going through the same motions and actions day after day are not enough to fulfill the woman’s wants or needs anymore and she finds herself dreaming of a place other than the one she currently occupies. Dove switches tones frequently to express the emotions that the woman experiences throughout her day and uses disheartening words to mirror the mother’s displeasure with her life. Diction is an integral part of the poem because Dove manipulates certain words to elicit feelings of compassion from the reader. In the second stanza, the mother “lugged a chair behind the garage” (line 4) to finally get some rest after running herself ragged all day. The word “lugged” indicates the heaviness of her responsibilities and presents feelings of melancholy. The mother’s duties are a heavy weight in her life and they prevent her from being able to perform any tasks not having to do with housework. She has to place all of her time and effort into her housework therefore eliminating any free time she could potentially have for herself. The mother’s displeasure is not only apparent with her daily routine but also with her relationship with her husband. Throughout the poem, the husband’s role is nonexistent and is not even mentioned until the woman goes to bed. Her husband “[lurches] into her” (line 18) and she does not respond to him with any loving emotion. Dove uses the word “lurched” to describe an unwanted force of contact and to i... ... middle of paper ... ...s to be more than a stay at home mother and wife but feels trapped by the role that she if forced to play. Similarly to the way people hold expectations for the daystar, or sun, to rise every day, mothers are expected to perform their duties like cleaning the house or taking care of the children. Both are taken advantage of and are not fully appreciated until they stop performing their duties. Throughout the poem, the woman’s daughter and husband are given names, “Liza” (line 12) and “Thomas” (line 17) respectively, but not her. The woman is only referred to as “she” or “her” which further highlights the lack of acknowledgement she receives. The mother is taken for granted by her family and is not regarded as important. Her efforts are ignored and she is never thanked for completing her tasks around the house because that is the role she is “supposed” to fulfill.
The poet shows us that her mother did her best, and also was able to
Throughout history, the story of womankind has evolved from struggles to achievements, while some aspects of the lives of women have never changed. Poet Dorianne Laux writes about the female condition, and women’s desire to be married and to have a home and children. She also seems to identify through her poetry with the idea that women tend to idealize the concept of marriage and settling down and she uses her poetry to reach out to the reader who may have similar idyllic views of marriage or the married lifestyle. Though Dorianne Laux’s poem “Bird” reads very simply, it is actually a metaphor for an aspect of this female condition.
With using diction, the reader will feel like they are an observer of the conversation, with the talking happening right in front of them. The choice of words that the author uses illustrates how the mother doesn’t think that she has not accomplished climbing on the “crystal stair”. The author uses words like “kinder” and “I’se” in the poem to make the speaker sound uneducated to the reader. Hughes does this, because he wants the reader to get a sense of her background. If she didn’t get the education she needed, then that contributes to why the woman has had a rough life. The author writes in this uneducated sounding English because he wants the reader to know that you don’t have to be completely educated in order to have strength and hope. The speaker may not be as educated as other people, but she knows how to set a strong base of life lessons for her
Because this woman is a slave, she has no right to her own child, therefore she cannot claim him as her own. No matter how much she loves him or how much joy that he brings into her dreary life, he can never be hers, and her heart breaks when he is taken away from her. Mothers have a very special bond with their children; they feel a love that can be described as much stronger than any other kind of love in the world. This love that is felt by the slave mother in this poem literally changes the tone of the poem when the narrator speaks about the mother and her son. Despite the anguish and despair that she feels, the thought of her child can lift her spirits, only for the child to be taken away from her. Because of her race, she cannot claim any right to love her own child. As a woman, her right to be a mother and raise and love her child was taken away from her. The slave mother had no rights to herself or her own children, and her race and gender are the main causes for
He mentions how far women have come since his grandmother's day, but realizes the country as a whole has more room to grow. He mentions how tough it can be for women to juggle a demanding career while raising a family. Both text reference what honor motherhood is but they also admit the demanding workforce can determine how successful a mother they can be. Women today may not face slavery, but they face double standards that limit them to be successful professionals and parents.
These final words sum up her feeling of helplessness and emptiness. Her identity is destroyed in a way due to having children. We assume change is always positive and for the greater good but Harwood’s poem challenges that embedding change is negative as the woman has gained something but lost so much in return.
Fulfilling the roles of both mother and breadwinner creates an assortment of reactions for the narrator. In the poem’s opening lines, she commences her day in the harried role as a mother, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle with balancing priorities. After saying goodbye to her children she rushes out the door, transitioning from both, one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day continues, when reflecting on
as, the basic elements of becoming a housewife, however, her longing for something better causes her to look and behave like anything but.
The poem becomes personal on line 10 when she uses the first person and says “I lost my mother’s watch”. She is letting the reader know what she has lost in reality. Then she gets sidetracked to mention other things she has lost; she then mentions other things she has lost of much more importance such as houses, continents, realms, and cities, but then again mentions it was not so hard to lose those things. But in the end, mention the loss that really matters. She remembers the qualities of the lover she lost.
Actress Jessica Lange once said, “The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your universe. You relinquish that position to your children. ” Lange’s statement implies motherhood comprises of selflessness, that women have a natural inclination to forswear their aspirations to assist their children to pursue their own. Nonetheless, other prevalent notions about motherhood share this same idiosyncrasy. Motherhood places the child’s needs above everyone else’s. Mothers who devote themselves to their children develop a large portion of their identities through their roles as mothers, sometimes to the point where they will do nothing else but raise their children. This is especially
Form and meaning are what readers need to analyze to understand the poem that they are evaluating. In “Mother to Son”, his form of writing that is used frequently, is free verse. There is no set “form”, but he gets his point across in a very dramatic way. The poem is told by a mother who is trying to let her son know that in her life, she too has gone through many frustrations just like what her son is going through. The tone of this poem is very dramatic and tense because she illustrates the hardships that she had to go through in order to get where she is today. She explains that the hardships that she has gone through in her life have helped her become the person that she has come to be. Instead of Hughes being ironic, like he does in some of his poems, he is giving the reader true background on the mother’s life. By introducing the background, this helps get his point across to the reader in a very effective way. In this poem there are many key words which help portray the struggles that the mother is trying to express to her son. The poem is conveyed in a very “down to earth” manner. An example of this is, “Life for me ain’t been a crystal stair (462).” This quote shows the reader that the mom is trying to teach the son a lesson with out sugar coating it. She wants her son to know that throughout her life has had many obstacles to overcome, and that he too is going to have to get through his own obstacles no matter how frustrating it is. Her tone throughout the poem is stern telling the boy, “So boy, don’t turn your back (462).” The poems tone almost makes the reader believe that the mother is talking to them, almost as if I am being taught a valuable lesson.
For the most part of the poem she states how she believes that it is Gods calling, [Then ta’en away unto eternity] but in other parts of the poem she eludes to the fact that she feels more like her granddaughter was stolen from her [or sigh thy days so soon were terminate]. One of the main beliefs in these times was that when someone died it was their time; God needed them and had a better plan. Both poets found peace in the idea that God had the children now and it was part of the plan, but are also deeply saddened and used poetry as a coping mechanism.
... In fact, the mother even recollects how like an infant he still is as she reflects on his birth and "the day they guided him out of me", representing her denial at her son's pending adulthood. The son's rite of passage to manhood, his acceptance of the role of host and peacemaker and unifier, is a shocking one for both speaker and reader. To unite his comrades, he comments "We could easily kill a two-year-old" and the tone of the poem changes finally to one of heartlessness at the blunt brutality of the statement.
She only allows her to see her worth in having a clean home and a satisfied man. She never once tells the girl to follow her dreams or even talk about what they are. The mother only keeps on instructing her on even the simplest things like smiling : “...this is how you smile to someone you don 't like too much;this is how you smile at someone you don 't like at all;this is how you smile to someone you like completely...” this poem is filled with the phrases “this is how”. “ don’t do this”, and “ be sure to..” the speaker does not even give the girl a chance to speak her mind or form her own thoughts. The young girl was only able to get one sentence out the whole poem : “...but what if the baker won 't let me feel the bread?”
In the second stanza, the poet says that women are the cause that make her write poems because of the stereotypes against them, which give her a strong desire to challenge. Therefore, she takes women’s stories and writes them in poetry. She describes herself as a “seamstress” and without the dresses of women, she would be a seamstress without work, but her friends give her their dresses (their stori...