Wasteland Motherhood

1581 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Nature versus nurture in child development

Motherhood is at times an extremely complicated process that a multitude of mothers go through when taking on the choice to raise a child. Based on the individual, this process can be one that is natural or extremely difficult to execute. Within this process, there are new issues and mindsets that emerge in the threshold of motherhood that creates intense struggles. In the texts Waste Land (Walker, 2010) by Lucy Walker and “Morning Song” by Sylvia Plath the director and poet display these issues and struggles within these two different mediums that eventually arise in the never-ending process. These texts connect to one another by demonstrating and including the struggles of urges to provide, emotions of detachment, and improving mindsets …show more content…

Towards the end of the eye opening film, Suelem is filmed pregnant with her third child juxtaposed to the picture she made with Vik Muniz and the other pickers (1:26:54-1:27:05). This picture represents a new mentality for Suelem and her children. This new mental understanding was one that included a better future and a way of living for the mother and children. This frame makes a connection between new motherhood and fresh mindsets. This scene’s juxtaposition of Suelem pregnant next to the picture provided the implication of the symbolization of a new way of life or mentality for her execution of motherhood. The audience can make the assumption that Suelem’s way of thinking about motherhood has changed and improved. In this moment she is the definition of clarity, focus, and has become the manifestation or embodiment of the representative art she is standing next …show more content…

The speaker says the words “I wake to listen” when describing the night of her child’s birth (line 11). Here the reader can pick up on a shift in her tone. Much of the beginning of the poem is implying the mother’s share of postpartum depression. When she speaks those words “I wake to listen”, the audience can see that her mentality has shifted. Her mentality has morphed from one that was disconnected and distant to one that is dutiful and alert. The shift implies that the child is now viewed as a human and not something previously mentioned that is not human such as a “statue”. This shift accordingly demonstrates that she now views the child as her responsibility; she is connecting, and is coming around to the idea of what being a mother means. Though the morphing of Suelem’s mentality dealt more with the restructuring of an old way of motherhood, both women changed and improved their mindsets for the

Show More
Related

  • Paul Delaroche's Portrayal Of Women In The 19th Century

    909 Words  | 2 Pages

    The painting depicts a mother and her four children, who are all leaning on her as she looks down solemnly, her tired, despondent expression suggests she felt trapped in her roles as being a mother and a wife. The woman and her children are clearly the focal point of the artwork as the bright colours used to paint them stand out impeccably against the dull, lifeless colours of the background. This painting appears to be centred around the ideology that women are home-keepers, whose main role is to satisfy and assist her husband while simultaneously minding the children and keeping the home tidy and ready for his return. The social consequences of this artwork could have been that the woman could have been berated for not taking pleasure out of being a mother and raising her children, as a woman should. She could have been made redundant as her husband may have felt as though she is no longer useful if she couldn’t adequately adhere to her roles as a mother and a

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Cassatt's The Child And Mother Nursing Her Child

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,

    Read More

  • Americanized: Poem Analysis

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...

    Read More

  • The Significance of Art in Chopin's The Awakening

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    Adèle Ratignolle uses art to beautify her home. Madame Ratignolle represents the ideal mother-woman (Bloom 119). Her chief concerns and interests are for her husband and children. She was society’s model of a woman’s role. Madame Ratignolle’s purpose for playing the pia...

    Read More

  • Helped by Her Son During Abusive Relationship in The Mother by Maxim Gorky

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Mother the audience is lead on a journey of strengthening and renewed youthfulness as the mother becomes increasingly active in her son’s movement. For twenty years the mother was held captive to an abusive, maddened husband whom constantly hurt the mother. During this time the mother became accustomed to her situation and only her son’s movement change this outlook on life. Gorky uses dark imagery and diction to portray the evolution of the mother from a fearful, weak person to a strong, youthful participant in her son’s movement.

    Read More

  • Comparing Brave New World and Handmaid's Tale

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    Offred contrasts the way she used to think about her body to the way she thinks about it now. Before, her body was an instrument, an extension of herself. But now her self no longer matters and her body is only important because of its `central object', her womb which can bear a child.

    Read More

  • To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible by Anna Barbauld

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    The focus of the poem is on the feelings of a female narrator that is waiting for her unborn baby. As previously stated, men were jealous of women because of their recreation power; during the era, recreation was a main focus of many writers. Moreover, Anna Barbauld validates in her poem just how the female narrator having the power to recreate a human being conveys hope and contentment. I will prove this contentment that the narrator has in the poem through Barbauld’s diction, female perspective, and nature as a metaphor.

    Read More

  • Little Fugue and Morning Song by Sylvia Plath

    1480 Words  | 3 Pages

    Morning Song is literally the cry of a baby, as it calls for it’s mother. The relationship between mother and child is strong although Plath seems to view her child as something totally unchildlike. She doesn’t seem to be able to connect with her child in any way.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks

    330 Words  | 1 Pages

    Analysis of The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks. For this assignment, I chose the poem "The Mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem is generally about abortion and the feelings a mother has. It's about the remembrance of the children aborted and the little things children do that the mother will miss.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Motherhood In Sula

    807 Words  | 2 Pages

    Eva’s lack of value for motherhood shaped the lives of her family as well as her own. Because of her negative feelings toward motherhood, many of the people surrounding her have similar values. Eva reflects her community’s negative perception of motherhood by being straightforward about it and passing it down through her family

    Read More

  • An Evolving Relationship in The Circling Hand

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is easily inferred that the narrator sees her mother as extremely beautiful.  She even sits and thinks about it in class.  She describes her mother s head  as if it should be on a sixpence,  (Kincaid 807).  She stares at her mother s long neck and hair and glorifies virtually every feature.  The narrator even makes reference to the fact that many women had loved her father, but he chose her regal mother.  This heightens her mother s stature in the narrator s eyes.   Through her thorough description of her mother s beauty, the narrator conveys her obsession with every detail of her mother.   Although the narrator s adoration for her mother s physical appearance is vast, the longing to be like her and be with her is even greater.

    Read More

  • Women in The Count of Monte Cristo

    964 Words  | 2 Pages

    When women are kept in their classical role of mother and caretaker, all is well and their lives are simple. Children relate positively to their mothers in this typical setting; while Dantés was in prison, during a time of distress, he remembered something his mother had done for him. For example, Dumas writes, “He remembered the prayers his mother had taught him and found meanings in them which he had formerly been unaware.” (41). Mothers teach their children to the best of their ability, evidenced in Dantés, as well as when Caderousse says Mercédès is instructing her son, Albert. It is in these moments that a mother’s love, compassion, and necessity are revealed. Lives are calm and enriched as long as women are in their niche. This includes non-maternal nurturing roles, for example, Mercédès attentiveness to Dantés father and Valentine’s special ability to care for Nortier. This loyalty is valued and shown as essential for the stability of life. Though The Count of Monte Cristo depicted women as best suited to the home, they intermittently stepped further out of that r...

    Read More

  • The Role Of Nurse Glauce In The Faerie Queene

    1601 Words  | 4 Pages

    Glauce exemplifies the role of motherhood in many different ways in her treatment of Britomart. First of all, she is immediately aware of Britomart's change in attitude after viewing the image of Artegall in the e...

    Read More

  • Soap Operas and Reality TV Dating Shows

    1762 Words  | 4 Pages

    [3] Modleski claims that this desire to build and maintain relationships is only thwarted by the presence of the ‘good mother’s’ anti-thesis: the ‘villainess’. As she signifies the contrary values of the ‘good mother’ (she is selfish, manipulative, scheming, etc.). the ‘villainess’ embodies the entirety of the spectator’s displaced, repressed anger at her own powerlessness. [4] She, as Modleski describes, takes everything that makes women vulnerable and turns it to her advantage (pregnancy, for example, is used by the villainess for the sake of manipulation, not guilt, shame or responsibility).

    Read More

  • Epitaph Poem Analysis

    1122 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of Philip’s greatest tactics in this piece, to convey her intense grief and desolation, is her use of promising phrases about her son’s future, and her sheer joy about what it holds for him. In doing this she is able to build an emotional connection between herself and the reader, “Seaven years Childless Marriage past/ A Son, A Son is born at last…”(5,6), “As a long life promised,” (9), and “Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Aier,” (8). The emotional feelings that are withdrawn from these phrases all resonate with the reader, and allow us to become much more sensitive to not only her and what she is going through, but also her son and his lack of life. The repetition of “Son” is very effective in showing how elated she was, and actually makes the depressing realization that follows even darker and more troublesome.

    Read More

More about Wasteland Motherhood

Open Document