Tone Of The Poem The Mother

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The poem “the mother” is told by a woman who seems to have had multiple abortions. She also seems to be haunted by the choices she made to abort her “children”. (Lines 1-2) “Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get.” Although her choices to abort her children seem to be deliberate (Line 21) “Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate”, it is never expressed exactly how many abortions she’s had or the reasons of why she had them. She seems to value motherhood but still has chosen to end her pregnancies and does not seem to feel comfortable, at least presently, with the choices she has made in the past. She also seems to know what being a mother entails as she says in lines 7-8 “You will never wind up the sucking-thumb / Or scuttle off ghosts that come.” The speaker wonders …show more content…

The tone in lines 1-20 can be described as sentimental, sad, vivid, and remorseful. Reflecting on the appearance of an aborted child by describing (line 3) “The damp small pulps with little of with no hair” By Lines 20 through 33 she is addressing the children she has aborted. The tone now is realistic and she expresses love, searching for forgiveness, and sorrow. (Lines 22-28) “Though why should I whine, Whine that the crime was other than mine?- Since somehow you are dead. Or rather, or instead, You were never made. But that too, I am afraid, Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?” The tone turns to sincerity and loving as the speaker seems to attempt to reassure her aborted children that she indeed loved them with all of her

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