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Summary. In the poem by Adrienne Rich, the speaker addresses her mother-in-law, expressing a desire for genuine communication and understanding. The mother-in-law implores the daughter-in-law to share something, not mundane details but a profound secret, a truth that could illuminate their lives.
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‘the mother’ by Gwendolyn Brooksis an emotional poem that conveys the thoughts of a woman who goes through emotional turmoil after having abortions. Throughout the lines of ‘the mother,’ the speaker remembers her past experiences and the children that she’s now never going to actually “get.” She wonders about the people that they could’ve grown up ...
‘the mother’ by Gwendolyn Brooks is a three-stanza poem that is separated into an uneven sense of lines. These stanzas range in length from three lines up to twenty. The poem is written in free verse. This means that there is not a single rhyme scheme or metrical pattern that unifies the lines. But, there are a few rhymes scattered through the poem...
Brooks makes use of several literary devices in ‘the mother’. These include but are not limited to enjambment, apostrophe, and anaphora. The first occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point. Enjambment forces a reader down to the next line and the next quickly. One has to move forward in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or...
Stanza One
In the first lines of ‘the mother,’ the speaker starts off with a “hook”. The first line draws the reader into the complex topic of abortion. It is followed up with a description of the fetuses who existed as people but didn’t. They were “damp small pups with a little or with no hair”. This line rhymes with the next, creating a slightly disturbing singsong-like coupletthat considers the lost possibilities of these unborn children’s lives. They could’ve become workers or singers or gone into a...
Stanza Two
The first line of this stanza presents another disturbing, rhyming description. She describes, as someone who has had abortions, the “voices of the wind, the voices of my damn killed children.” The half-rhymeof “wind” and “dim” makes this phrase one of the most memorable in the poem. The speaker is not beating around the bushor shining a positive light on what she feels like she has done. She has “erased” her “dim dears” that would’ve sucked at her breast, but now I never will. In the next li...
Stanza Three
The final stanza of this poem is only three lines long. It also contains an example of anaphora. The first two lines both begin with the words “Believe me, I.” She states that she “loved” all the children and “knew” them, even if it was faintly. The last lines end with the repetition of “I loved.” The arrangement of these words, the use of enjambment, commas, and repetition adequately convey the emotion in the speaker’s tone.
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Poem Analyzed by Dharmender Kumar. Degrees in English Literature, Mass Communication, and Law. The poem is in the first person, about a very young chimney sweeper who exposes the evils of chimney sweeping as a part of the cruelties created by the sudden increase in wealth.
by Gwendolyn Brooks. Themes. Analysis. Questions & Answers. The Poem. PDF Cite. “The mother” is a short poem in free verse, written mostly in the first person. In her narrator,...
The best Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law study guide on the planet. The fastest way to understand the poem's meaning, themes, form, rhyme scheme, meter, and poetic devices.
Apr 9, 2023 · The poem “the mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks expresses the sentiments of a woman who has undergone abortions and regrets them. The speaker recalls her prior experiences and the children she will now never truly “understand” via the words of “the mother.”
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The Mother. Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1945. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. Download PDF.
