Comparing The Motherhood In The Victory, Metaphors, And The Mother

When people think of mothers, most immediately jump to the image of their own unconditionally loving, sacrificing and caring figure they had as their own, whereas some had callous, uncaring women that they had to call a mother. However, the three poems The Victory, Metaphors, and The Mother by Stevenson, Plath, and Brooks, respectively, depict motherhood in both of these manners which expounds the true feelings behind any current or future mother.

To begin, one may ask, is motherhood innate? This may be taken to mean, once someone becomes pregnant, does this person acquire all of the motherly features that we all expect such as unconditional love? Stevenson’s poem has an interesting take on this where the speaker uses grotesque language to call her own baby an “antagonist,” an

For one to be a good mother by modern standards, we expect them to be able to give up some of who they are in order to raise their children. Brooks has a differing opinion in that she would rather live her life with “deliberateness” than have children, and as a result chooses to have abortions (Brooks 21). The regretful tone of her poem however, suggests that she would take the children back just to have the wonderful experience of being a mother, as she describes it, to be able to “silence [them] with a treat” or “return for a snack of them” (Brooks 6,10). The sombre tone may also be remnants of postpartum depression, which leads to another possible reading, in which the speaker, instead of aborting her children, lost them at a young age. This is apparent in her vast knowledge of heartbreak she felt after “poison[ing their] breaths” and eliminating their “baby tears” (Brooks 18, 20). As a whole, the speaker presents herself mid thought by using sudden shifts, signaling that she may, afterall, not be the best candidate for a mother, because of her own impartial attitude towards her own