Joanne Pacheco
Woman to Child
In the poem “Woman to Child” the author, Judith Wright, illustrates the theme of maternal love. It shows how a mother’s love for her child is extremely unconditional from the beginning of pregnancy to the birth of the child and so on. It is a heart touching poem with a beautiful meaning. The poem is definitely true to its title. It is also true to a mother’s feelings, and a mother’s bond to her unborn child. Wright’s poem focuses on the different stages of pregnancy and motherhood. She describes the life-changing and amazing process of birth, along with the happy feeling associated with becoming a mother. There is nothing in this world that could ever compare with the joyful feeling of motherhood. Judith uses figurative language to help portray these two processes in a poetic, but best of all an artistic manner. As a result of her cleverness in using these elements, the maternal love theme is remarkably expressed in an outstanding style.
First, the poem is divided into four stanzas. Each stanza describes the different stages of pregnancy and childbirth. The first verse interprets the conception phase; “where out of darkness rose the seed” in this case the word “seed” symbolizes an embryo. “Then all a world I made in me” this line shows the ability a woman has to make life by conception. It also portrays the unique bond of a mother to her unborn child, who she clearly sees as her world. The author finishes the first stanza by saying “all the world you hear and see hung upon my dreaming blood.” These two quotes express the idea a mother has that to give life to a little person is to give them the world. The author expresses amazing feelings in the first stanza by explaining the significance of conc...
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...ives a sense of ending because the astonishing poem starts with conception and finishes with death.
In conclusion, Wright’s poem uses figurative language to help bring a positive vision to what at times can be seen as a negative experience. Pregnancy and childbirth are revealed as privileged rather than unfortunate and pitiable. As a result, the poem expresses the theme of maternal love as a whole. Maternal love is incomparable and possibly the strongest love that a person, in this case a woman can feel for an individual. Judith Wright undoubtedly illustrates the difficulty and the depth between a woman and her child. Fortunately, the love of a mother can never be replaced because it is true love that goes beyond the physical and emotional meaning of it. The fact that it starts to develop when the child is just a seed, makes it the most sincere and pure out of all.
The descriptions and words used create the most vivid images of a mother’s escape to freedom with her son. This poem takes you on both a physical and emotional journey as it unravels through the treacherous demands of freedom. A beautiful example of her ability to rhyme both internally as well as externally can be seen here,
Iqbal Masih was just four years old when his single mother used him as collateral on a loan between a local employer of a carpet weaving factory in Pakistan to pay for her eldest son’s wedding. For the six long years he was employed, a typical workday included at least 14 hour shifts for six days a week with only one 30 minute break. Even though Iqbal lived under terrible conditions and the relentless threats of abuse, his mother had no choice but to keep borrowing money from the employer to make ends meet at home.
The author of “Mother to Son”, Langston Hughes, displays the attitude of hopefulness in the poem to show that life will not be easy for the son, but he should never give up because the mother did not. The author uses literary devices like figurative language, imagery, and diction. By using these literary devices, Hughes creates a sympathetic mood in the poem in order to emotionally draw in the reader.
Kahn was a writer and contribute editor of magazines for wired and national geographic. Stripped for parts appeared in wired in 2003. Kahn was awarded award in 2004 for a journalism fellowship from the American Academy of Neurology. She wrote this short essay describing how organs can be transplanted. The Stripped essay is an- eye opener. Though not many people tend to think of how a body should be maintained after death. Jennifer Kahn depicts a dramatic image for her audience. She uses the terminology “the dead man “though technically correct, the patient is brain dead, but his or her heart is still beating.
Throughout reading this novel, my thought on transgender and transsexual individuals was pretty set and stone. For example, I knew from reading the textbook that a transgender is a person that is born—in Jenny’s case—a male, but was psychologically and emotionally born a female. However, Jenny took things one-step further and became a transsexual, which is an individual that underwent surgery to obtain the genitals that match the psychological and emotional gender within, which in her case was a female. Therefore, Jenny Finney Boylan would be considered a transsexual female. What I did not know prior to reading this book is how tedious the process is to make a sex change. To be honest I never thought about the process a transsexual needed to go through to become one’s self, I did not think about the many steps taken to obtain the voice, or look of a female that Jenny was striving for. I also did not think about the surgery, and how scary that type of surgery could actually be. For example, on page 124 Jennifer is discussing the process of transition with her psychologist, Dr. Strange. On this page Dr. Strange is beginning to inform Jenny, and essentially myself, on how to begin the transition of becoming a female. First Dr. Strange was listing off the effects the hormones will have on Jenny’s body, and I first they made sense to me; softer skin, fluffier hair, but I never knew the physical changes hormones could have on someone, especially a man. For instance, I learned that there is such a thing called “fat migration.” This is when the fat on previous parts of your body migrates to another location. I learned from this novel that fat migration is a result of hormones, and since Jenny was once a man, her face would become less r...
Her children greatly shaped her life; she gave birth to eight children and loved them deeply. In, "In Reference to My Children", she writes about neutering her children: “great was my pain when I you bread, great was my care when you I feed" (Bradstreet 55). She recorded her struggles about being a mother in troubling times. In her poem, "Before the Birth of One of Her Children" she records the last moments before giving birth: "and when thy loss shall be with gains, look to my little babes, my dear remains."(Bradstreet 21), she writes this thinking it would be her last thinking that childbirth would kill her, proving that her love for her children is greater than any other love she has, and that she would die for them. Her husband also is a theme in her poems, she writes about her bond with him and that "if ever two were one, then surely we" (Bradstreet 1) in "To My Dear Loving Husband". Bradstreet Is constantly writing about her husband and her love for him when he is far telling the reader that she is close with her husband and that she loves him deeply. Not only does her poems reflect her husband but also the roll that women had in the 1600's. In "A Love Letter to Her Husband" she tells him to "post with double speed, mark what I say, by all our loves contour him not to stray" (Bradstreet 39). One of her most prominent themes would be her devotion to her religion and God. She
In Francis Ellen Watkins Harper's poem "The Slave Mother, A Tale of Ohio," she uses a shifting tone as well as other specific literary techniques to convey the heartbreaking story of a slave woman being separated from her child. This story specifically draws light to the horrific reality that many slaves faced: families were torn apart. Because this poem tells the story of a mother and her son, it also draws light to the love that mothers have for their children and the despair that they would go through if anything were to ever happen to them. Harper's poem addresses both race and gender, and it effectively conveys the heartbreak of the mother to the audience.
Harwood wrote the poem with relatively simple composition techniques but it provides a rather big impact which helps to give an insight into the life of a mother or nurturer which bares the burdens of children.
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
The mother, however, refuses to acknowledge the child as anything but a child is a major conflict in this poem. Because she refers to her as a?child? and calls her?baby? it is clear that the mother does not take the child?s pleas seriously. The mother is certain that she knows what is best for her child and that the child?s feelings and ideas are unimportant.
the poet is trying to portray the fragility of a life, as it is created with the intent to be lost (death
..., a loss that everyone can either sympathize or empathize. However, instead of focusing on the pain and heartbreak of not having a mother, the narrator instead takes strength in the fact that her mother is connected to nature. Although her mother is not physically in her life, her body has, instead, been buried in the ground like a seed. This brings the narrator solace because at least her mother’s essence will always be present as long as there are trees, grass, and animals.
" its hard not to feel some sadness or even a feeling of injustice. All the incidents that I mentioned in the previous paragraph are among the many vivid images in this work. Brooks obviously either had experience with abortions or she felt very strongly about the issue. The feelings of sadness, remorse, longing, and unfulfilled destinies were arranged so that even someone with no experience or opinion on this issue, really felt strong emotions when reading "The Mother". One image that is so vivid that it stayed with me through the entire poem was within the third line.
Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” does not have as complex of a story as Tennyson’s. The poem is short and sweet, a piece of dialogue of a ...
The novel starts right off with the notion of a love between a mother and a son. Even at a young age, Stephen is able to distinguish that his mother is a source of pure, unabridged love. “His mother had a nicer smell than his father. ”(1) At a very young age the artist is already beginning to form because of women, he is beginning to see beauty through the senses.