Are You My Mother?

The poem “Mother Who Gave Me Life”, written by Gwen Harwood explores the extremely personal relationship between a daughter and her mother. It focus’ on the universal role of women as mothers and nurturers throughout time. It explores the intimate moments and memories between a daughter and her mother, and gives us as the reader an insight into the relationship between the two.

In the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily Owens struggles with the notion that she killed her mother and has to live with her abusive, neglectful father, T-Ray. Throughout, Lily searches for information about her mother and why she left her. Unexpectedly, she stumbles upon new mother figures that play an important role in changing Lily to the person she is in later. The typical sequence of a hero’s journey includes a departure, initiation and trials, and reintegration into society. By the end, Lily Owens developes into a more mature, independent young women after experiencing a difficult childhood.

TS - In the poem, “Mother who gave me Life”, Harwood explores the memory of motherhood as a quintessential part of being human.

The way Bechdel decides to depict the characters through her art is a major factor in how the characters are developed, and can be a major factor in how the story is perceived. At a first glance, the depiction of Bechdel’s persona, Alison, in “Are You My Mother?” appears to have very masculine features. An uninformed reader may at first assume that the story is about a man. However, through the dialogue and narration it is quickly revealed that the drawings are depictive of a homosexual woman. Bechdel’s portrayal of herself in the graphics as having very masculine features says a lot about her self-perception. She creates her own persona, so the character seen in the cartoons is Bechdel in her own image and likeness. Clearly, Bechdel illustrated her comic so that the character bared a strong resemblance to her own self-image. Later on in the story, starting on page 83, Alison is depicted wearing glasses and she bears a much stronger resemblance to actual pictures of Bechdel. In several scenes throughout the story, including the opening scene, Bechdel has dreams of herself as a child. These scenes showed a young Alison, dressed in what would widely be considered boys clothing (Bechdel 73). The illustrations as a whole are very sexually ambiguous. This may be perceived as an allusion to Bechdel’s struggles with her own sexuality. However, the refrences to Bechdel’s struggles go beyond the art.

With close reference to Before you were mine Mother..any distance and On my first Sonne explain how imagery, structure and language are used to convey these relationships. Relationships between Parents and Children are described in several poems in the Anthology. With close reference to 'Before you were mine' 'Mother..any distance' and 'On my first Sonne' explain how imagery, structure and language are used to convey these relationships. The three poems all contain different ideas on relationships between parents and children.

Few relationships are as deep as those between child and parent. While circumstance and biology can shape the exact nature of the bond, a child’s caretaker is the first to introduce them to the world. And as they grow and begin to branch out, children look to their parents as a model for how to interact with the various new situations. Through allusion, potent imagery, and nostalgic diction, Natasha Trethewey constructs an idolized image of a father guiding their child through life’s challenges only to convey the speaker’s despair when they are faced with their father’s mortality in “Mythmaker.”

Matilda didn’t like how her mother would always urge on her. She felt like she was being pulled down to earth and there was no escape. But then Matilda realized how much she loved her mother after her mother had gotten the illness and disappeared. With the unknown whereabouts of her mother, Matilda grew worried every day hoping to find a sign that her mother was still out there--somewhere. Matilda doesn’t know what to do anymore without her mother’s presence. She feels empty and as if “the sun need not rise again. There was no reason for the rivers to flow. Birds would never sing” (Anderson

The author Wes Moore recounts the time in chapter one, “Is Daddy Coming With Us?” , when he met his father who at the time was just a strange man. Wes states that “[he] looked at his mother… [moving] closer to [her] hip” (Moore 25). He continues by telling the reader that he automatically felt safer next to her. The reason for this text is to help the reader understand how many families can help with the development of a person. The author describes this event in full detail to show how Wes’ family provided him with a sense of feeling safe and sheltered.

Both Mother Who Gave Me Life by Gwen Harwood and Woman to Child by Judith Wright, explore the bonds shared between mother and child. While both poems explore the same themes, each poet uses different techniques in doing so. Woman to Child is from the point of view of a mother. Although the poet has used the personal pronouns ‘I’ and ‘me’, the poem is not from Wrights point of view, rather, from every woman’s, as majority of women have experienced the intimate experience of becoming a mother. Like Woman to Child, Mother Who Gave Me Life also uses personal pronouns, but unlike Woman to Child, Mother Who Gave Me Life is a personal elegy for Harwood’s mother.

Ann Fessler tells about her personal experiences with adoption during the 1950s and 60s in the beginning of the book. The author writes about herself being adopted and dealing with the difficult reality of finding her birth mother. Within the first couple of pages, Fessler says, “My adoptive mother and father were offered very little information about my biological parents.”(2) and “...after forty years of life as an adoptee I was hearing the other side of the story for the first time.”(3). Fessler explaining her past and her personal experience with adoption is one of her examples that give her ethos. Fessler was never given the chance to meet her birth mother which shows again how the lack of control caused these women's situations to worsen. After having the credibility to tell these girls’ stories, Fessler continued to bring the issue to light.

This book is about a kid named Bud that lost his mother as he tries to discover who his father is. Bud has been in numerous foster homes all the while in search for a better quality of living. Bud has been an orphan more times than he can count, and he wanted what any other kids wanted and that was to be loved and wanted. In the process, he meets several people along the way as he is on his quest to find his father based off a portrait his deceased mother kept over the years and that’s when the journey of self-validation really begins.

In the introduction of the film, the narrator was talking about how a bird struggles for survival when losing a parent. The bird loses an extra care taker, making life’s survival rate decrease. The bird's loss of a parent is the archetypal symbol in this story because Nicholas Nickleby losses his father after the bird story is read in the introductory. Nicholas and his family's life situation becomes more difficult economically because of the lack of income. The death of a parent is brought up several times throughout the story like Smike's tragic story. Smike had the most difficult life out of all the death of a parent situation because he grew up never knowing either of his parents. A child struggles to grow up with only one parent, but having no parents to be raised by is twice as hard. Smike was never raised by anyone except Mr. Squeers, who raised him as a slave. Also, Anne Hathaway's character lives with only her father because she lost her mother very young. She struggles to earn money for her and her father’s living up until she loses him as well. At the end of the story, Kate and Nicholas Nickleby marry their significant other. The man marrying them says that growing up without a parent is always difficult, but sharing and creating new blood for someone else rebuts a family, making a stronger bond. This wraps up the archetypal symbols seen throughout the entire film from the scene of the bird losing a parent in the beginning of the film to the

Alison Bechdel’s memoir, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, focuses on Alison and her relationship with her mother. Her relationship with her mother affects the way she relates to people, especially her mother. Bechdel begins this portrayal of Alison’s relationship with her mother on the cover of the book. The red, wood-like background of the cover of the book, is behind all of the other objects. This background is most likely a desk or table of some sort with several objects sitting on top of it. Firstly, I notice the mirror. Mirrors are typically seen as a symbol of self-indulgence and vainness. The mirror is golden and the title of the book, Are You My Mother? is placed in the mirror itself. Secondly, I see the red beaded necklace. The beads are not completely on the book cover. Beads, jewelry, and the color red are often seen as signs of affluence and richness. Next, I see the black and white picture. What appears to be two females are present in the picture. One is older than the other. The woman in the picture looks like she is sitting and appears to be smoking and reading some sort of book, magazine, or newspaper. There is a girl off to the left side of the woman in the picture, clasping her hands, smiling, and watching the woman from a distance. Finally, I notice the lipstick on the cover. The lipstick is in a white container with a gold band. I can clearly see that it is a red shade of lipstick. Again, red lipstick is usually seen worn on someone of importance.

Judith Wright’s poem “Mother to Child” is about a woman’s emotions during the different stages of motherhood. It tells the audience that the bond between a mother and her child is very powerful and that it changes as the child grows. Wright shows us this through her use of imagery, symbolism and the structure of her poem. The use of those three elements of literature help communicate the love the woman has for her child and how their connection grows stronger as time goes on.

The poem “My Mother’s Face” by Brenda Serotte depicts the difficulty of a mother and daughter with a close bond trying to cope with a difficult situation of becoming an adult. “My Mother’s face” talks about the women’s state of affairs, the words used in the poem indicate that the mother is going through a difficult situation and the speaker can feel it through her close observation and on her own accord. The poem basically highlights the human aging process and the difficulty for a mother to realize the fact that her beloved daughter doesn’t need her anymore. The daughter sees the mother’s reflection and passes it for her own, feeling empathetic to the sorrow being shown on her mother's face. The daughter now realizes that with time,