If I Should Have A Daughter Literary Devices

The relationship between a parent and a child can be a complicated, difficult to understand concept. Factors such as complications that occur in the lives of either of the figures, separation from the other, and the protection the parent is willing to give to the child all contribute to the idea of this messy relationship. However, all these factors seem to fall away in comparison to the immeasurable amount of love the parent and child carry for each other, and the strong relationships that last a whole lifetime. In many poems, authors such as Theodore Roethke, Li-Young Lee, and Rita Dove use literary devices such as imagery, tone, symbolism, metaphor, and simile to show the unbreakable bond 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.”

Has one ever thought about their future, whether they are going to have a kid, how they will teach them to be strong individual beings, and how to get through the tough times? In the poem “If I Should Have a Daughter” by Sara Kay, it demonstrates when one is taught to think with an open mind, it will result in learning to not be afraid of other’s opinions. Sara Kay represents this theme very well by using different literary devices, such as, symbols, imagery, and personification.

Comparing Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” Daughter and mother relationship is an endless topic for many writers. They meant to share the bond of love and care for each other. Nevertheless, in the real world their relationship is not as successful as it ought to be. The stories “Girl” and “I Stand Here Ironing” are examples of this conflict. The author of the short story “Girl” Jamaica Kincaid use her life story to reflect in the story. In her short story “Girl”, Kincaid presents the experience of being young and female in a poor country. The story is structured as a single sentence of advice that a mother gives to her daughter. The mother expresses her resents and worries about her daughter becoming a woman. The author of “I Stand Here Ironing” is Tillie Olsen, similarly her story portrays powerfully the economic domestic burdens a poor woman faced, as well as the responsibility and powerlessness she feels over her child’s life. Moreover, the woman is grieving about her daughter's life and about the circumstances that shaped her own mothering. Both stories have many features in common. Not only do they explore the troubles that could exist in the relationship between mother and daughter, but also they raise questions about motherhood, especially when a mother lives on a shoestring, the stories explore the difficulties that a young mother has to endure while raising her child in poverty. Although the two stories refer to different place and

Throughout time, fathers and daughters have had special relationships. Some, the best relationship a girl could ever hope for. For others, the relationship is not so great. Sylvia Plath and Lucille Clifton wrote poems describing the darker side of a father-daughter relationship. Their poems demonstrate them in different ways. The poets of “Forgiving my Father” and “Daddy” demonstrate the theme, unresolved anger leads to lifelong bitterness, because both narrators hate their fathers for lying, blame their fathers for ruining their lives, and, finally, learning to cut their fathers out of their lives.

After the long process of thinking of ideas on which to write this last essay on, I decided I would re-write the poem Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. I decided to re-write the poem from the words of a father towards his son as opposed to the words of a mother to her daughter depicted in the original piece. In my piece, I mimicked Kincaid in sentence structure and flow while swapping genders and keeping the overall meaning and significance to family.

Throughout time mother/daughter relationships have been tattered as woman’s liberation has taken place. Many mothers have the “old fashioned” opinion about what a woman should be. The short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, is a prime example of this relationship. The theme in “Girl” strongly suggests that a woman should be domestic and there is a certain way that she

A mother’s words are the ones that ring loudest in a child’s ear, are passed down from generation to generation, and the one’s that hold a special place in a child’s memory and heart forever. Expectations and guidelines are set at a young age. Morals and values are learned throughout the years, and life lessons are taught through the wisdom passed down from a mother to a daughter. Every mother has a wish for their daughter to be the best they can be. But at what point does instruction and wisdom become simply words that have been said one too many times? The short story “Girl,” written by Jamaica Kincaid is presented to the reader as a list of instructions from a mother to a daughter on how to live life to the

Sarah Kay’s presentation of “If I should have a Daughter.” tells the story of her journey, from a shy teenager with an interest in spoken word poetry to a teacher demonstrating to kids the power of self-expression. Kay begins with “B” (If I should have a daughter), a poem written from her perspective as a mother and the hypothetical relationship she would have with her daughter and the advice she would give her. Kay ends with “Hiroshima”, a poem that ties a historical event to her struggle to find her identity in relation to the world.

Sometimes mothers hold onto their daughters too tight and don’t allow them to be their own person, forcing them to break free from the psychic repressions and rebel. Jamaica Kincaid’s novel, Lucy: A Novel, demonstrates difficulties of mother-daughter relationships along with rebelling, ultimately taking a toll on a person’s actions. Even though Lucy is physically miles away from her mother, she is constantly in Lucy’s thoughts consciously and unconsciously. Multiple experiences of Lucy’s one way or another relates back to her mother whether it is telling fairy tales to Miriam or having sexual encounters with

Some young girls were beginning to be taught to stay away from the kitchen so that they wouldn’t become trapped into being a housewife. (Reader responses to a look back at the August 1976 issue of Good Housekeeping.) Although the reader doesn’t know what social status the mother in the poem is, the reader can understand that the mother does stay at home.

In “Youth” by Daughter they sing about growing up and leaving your childhood and teenage years behind you. The artist is trying to telling us that good years come and go and just like our bad years too. We get attached to people we’ve become best friends with then out of nowhere they get up and leave, we go through things and there’s nothing we could do about it. Even though teens don’t know it at that exact moment in time, they do things that harm themselves mentally and physically.

In “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother is warning her daughter about what to expect, and how to act, in society. The story represents a time when the daughter knew that her mother loved her enough to spend the time to give her the advice, but is also emotionally distant. I believe this to be representative of Kincaid’s life, and how after her brother’s were born she felt that her mother did not have enough time for her.

Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl explores these controversies and writes a long form poem that includes a list of rules for young girls to follow as advice that will help them be more likeable and become a reputable “woman”. These rules are delivered in a direct emphasis with strict undertone. The guidelines given to the young girl can be inferred as a mother teaching her daughter who is at the age of adolescence. Jamaica Kincaid’s long form poem Girl highlights the stereotypical social responsibilities of young girls which is heavily defined by language, culture, and mothers. In the poem the mother figure covers everything from how to

In the poem “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan is filed with metaphors and symbols that represent the feeling of a child growing up and moving out onto their own. There comes a time when every parent must send off their child into the world, and these parents feel a multitude of things when sending them off. It paints a picture of a father teaching his young daughter to ride a bike, but uses this image to represent a child growing up. The mixed feeling of pride and fear as the child grows up and moves out of the nest. The use of first person past tense shows us that the narrator is recalling the time they taught their child to ride a bike and are reliving that experience with the child moving out again. The fright of watching your child speed down the road towards life is portrayed from the start and continues throughout the poem. A good parent is always worried about their child’s wellbeing; they will always worry as they watch their children head straight to the destruction that comes with living life. Though the good parent will try their best to teach their child how to ride their bike into adulthood. This poem uses imagery, word choice, and metaphor to express the fears a parent has when sending their child out on their own into the world.