Robert Dobson's War Babies

The author, Sylvia Plath, deviates from the common connection most readers associate with a mother/daughter bond. Unlike the traditional correlation between a biological mother image and her child, Plath alters this modern ideology in an inventive, fresh manner. Opposed to the preceding example, Plath emphasizes Esther’s repetitive desire for another female character in the novel to be her real mother. These instances focalize on the true concept of the relationship between a maternal figure and child. Thus, Esther often reflects on her closeness to Dr. Nolan as being symmetric to a mother and daughter.

Parental guidance and support are key components of the foundation of a child’s growth and development. Without either, a child cannot grow and develop properly. In her novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison examines the effect of different mothers on their respective children through the characters of Mrs. MacTeer and Mrs. Breedlove. Throughout the novel, both characters express their thoughts and feelings through words, with Mrs. MacTeer having a few fussy soliloquies and Mrs. Breedlove having a few interior monologues to get their points across. Although Mrs. MacTeer and Mrs. Breedlove are two entirely different individuals, their respective fussy soliloquies and interior monologues greatly reflect one another.

In this story, it fascinated me when it made reference about the therapist needing to be transferable to the mother or father role in the family regardless of the therapist’s sex. In this case the clients are the traditional mother and father with two male co-therapists. Whitaker was seen taking on the maternal role when addressing Carolyn’s childhood and current issues with her mother while Napier observed the conversation. This was a great part of the book which portrayed isomorphism. This idea of being able to stay neutral as well as to identify with the role of mother or father adds another layer of complexity to help guide the context of the situation.

"You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. Over and over, we are told of the limitations on choice--"it was the only way"; "They persuaded me" and verbs of necessity recur for descriptions of both the mother's and Emily's behavior. " In such statements as "my wisdom ! came too late," the story verges on becoming an analysis of parental guilt. With the narrator, we construct an image of the mother's own development: her difficulties as a young mother alone with her daughter and barely surviving during the early years of the depression; her painful months of enforced separation from her daughter; her gradual and partial relaxation in response to a new husband and a new family as more children follow; her increasingly complex anxieties about her first child; and finally her sense of family balance which surrounds but does not quite include the early memories of herself and Emily in the grips of survival needs. In doing so she has neither trivialized nor romanticized the experience of motherhood; she has indicated the wealth of experience yet to be explored in the story’s possibilities of experiences, like motherhood, which have rarely been granted serious literary consideration. Rather she is searching for

Children are dependent on their mothers as they are one of the first people to bond with their child and this bond can be so strong it continues even as the child moves into adulthood. Armitage points out that children are reliant on their mothers that when they leave home they feel insecure and very hesitant. The son would rather stay with his mother than move out and to leave himself alone, is emphasised when the poet goes upstairs, ‘reporting metres, centimetres back to base’ reluctant to move out. Whenever he is given the opportunity to check back with his mother, he still does, coming back every time to see that what he is doing is acceptable, hinting that moving away is very difficult, suggesting that the distance between them is strong. Armitage examines the idea of growing up when he describes his memories as ‘unreeling years between us’. The child is reliant on the

Jimmy neverfinds out the reasons behind that decision. Unlike many women, she quits workingwhen her son goes to school. She continues to do her own research at home on hercomputer, though the specific kind of work remains unstated. Jimmy observes changesin her when she works: “she seemed to be enjoying herself. She was friendly then, too.She was like a real mother and he was like a real child” (30). Her mercurial moodsperplex her son; he describes her as often depressed and sullen. He recounts hisefforts to please her, which often met with annoyance. On good days, Jimmy found hera bit frightening, a bit too much like an image of a perfect mother. She seems like anexample of Chodorow and Contratto’s modern woman, attempting to be the idealmother while working and taking care of her husband (79). Jimmy quickly realizes thathe must bend to his mother’s moods and learns to find ways of getting her attention.More than anything, he seeks to get any reaction out of her, even if it is negative.Jimmy’s common adolescent attention-getting behavior underscores his mother’sneglectful parenting style, eliciting readers’ sympathy for Jimmy.

Becoming a parent, in its simplest form, is like spotting a wandering turtle on a lawn; in a heartbeat, the defensive instinct is to protect surfaces, and soon, the ache and determination to nurture the creature, give her a name, plan her successful future, and/or read her the classics become inevitable. Tillie Olsen’s reflective short story, “I Stand Here Ironing,” scrutinizes the crescendos and diminuendos of parenthood through her narrator, who, under debilitating pressure, must raise five children as a single mother. Olsen’s writing crafts a distinctive style of a diversified syntactical format, a realistic diction, a rich pattern of imagery, and a pedestrian, yet earnest, tone that chronicles the memories that the mother has of raising Emily, her first daughter, and simultaneously sheds light on the mother’s

The cruel and gruesome autobiography War Child by Emmanuel Jal tells the incredible story of a young boy born in Sudan. Jal grew up in a peaceful village with his family until they had to move, as the danger of civil war grew closer. The Arabs in Africa were trying to seize control of Sudan’s land and oil. Civil war soon broke out and one-day Jal’s family was separated; Jal soon learned that his mother had been killed and assumed the same fate for his siblings. However, Simon, Jal’s father, became an important commander in the Christian Sudanese Liberation Army (SPLA). And Jal was soon forced into the same army. Jal only a child endured many years of war while hatred for the Muslim enemy was poured into him. Consumed with anger and malice Jal stayed in a dark place for quite some time. However, it all changed one day when a British aid worker named Emma adopted him and took him to Nairobi where he could go to school. Trying to understand the faith in God his mother taught him, expelled from school, and understanding where he fits in the new world Jal was still lost. The one thing he found comfort in was music, “But I’d start to sing and remember Emma…and I knew there was good”(Jal 220). Jal found a love of rap and music that changed his life and he finally found

The topics presented within both the video and the article discussed war babies. A war baby is a child that is born out of rape during a war. It’s typical that within some regions during war, soldiers may come through and rape women. The magnitude of these crimes could easily be considered a crime against humanity, as well as a major violation of women’s rights. These rapes are not only a crime against women, but are also a crime against the children that are born out of these situations. As the title of this summary paper suggests, these babies are invisible.

This narrative cleverly describes the everyday thoughts, wonders and new behaviours of being a mother. The address to motherhoods is very straightforward indulging into the instinctual protectiveness and endless love for your children. The story describes a change in everyday life following motherhood and the seductive pleasure found in providing, caring and sacrifice: all to see yourself “in the dark pool / of your baby’s eyes” (13/14). The story “ends” after the children you cared to leave and the mother is left alone without someone to care for. An individual is directly addressed by the use of “you” as the speaker describes what has become of a person now that they are without children; existing as time passes and missing the days of

The story contains several autobiographical aspects, thus can be easily associated with the author’s mothering. Olsen shares and examines her own reflections through the narrator, who is concerned about her limitations in her capacity to care for and support her family (Frye 288). She and Emily’s mother came across numerous social and political difficulties when raising their children: they were working-class mothers abandoned by her daughter’s father during the Depression, and hence they could not spend much time with their elder daughters. The moment Olsen had her first daughter, she found a valuable job in Los Angeles and had to move alone leaving her daughter in the care of relatives. In the story, Olsen represents her challenging separation from her daughter by introducing a distant working-class mother who had to separate from her children to support them economically.

Since the beginning of mankind, parents are the ones who take care of their children. It is their responsibility to nurture them and guide them through life. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake and Jonathan Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the father figure plays a significant role in mentoring their son, but ultimately it is their own perspective that guides them the rest of the way. Yet both author’s approach at expressing this are both different and the same. The lack of a father figure has a significantly different effect on one’s youthful mind than if the father were with them every step of the way. Through the use of perspective and tragedy, both Lahiri and Foer convey the same message from two very different stories.

In the previous reading of “The Mother”, a light was thrown down on the ideas of hardships and sadness regarding abortions. With using New Criticism as the first approach, the poem was able to come alive. It was about a mother who could not figure out how to explain the grief she felt weighing on her shoulders. Even though it was her choice to abort her children, it still left scars mentally, and psychically. Now, after exploring the poem in the eyes of a New Critic, my next approach will be from a Feminist standpoint. Through this new perspective, a different light can shine down, and create a further understanding of sex, gender, the role of the father, and more present in the poem.

In most people’s lives, their relationship with their mother is one of the most important influences on them. It is because of this unavoidable fact that the main characters in both Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child and Suzan Lori Parks’ Getting Mother’s Body experience many repercussions of the strained relationship they had with their respective mothers. Both stories revolve around young women who are finally reaching a point in their lives in which they must face and reconcile with their problems from the past. In this essay, I will examine and discuss the characters themselves, the relationship between mother and daughter, and how these relationships affected the outcome of the lives of both daughters.

Motherhood feeling blooms in each woman’s heart. As a little girl, motherhood is practiced through doll as if it is her baby. As a woman grows up, she creates her dreams of being a mother, strong bond, and attachment to this world; she naturally belongs to this hood. Motherhood then becomes waking up in the middle of the night to make sure that her child is well tucked in and to give her full attention, care, and love to a child. It is a harsh world, tiredness and exhaustion sometimes. Through the endless journey, she consumes her real, metal and emotional power and energy for the sake of her own children’s comfort and happiness. Strangely, if asking any mother about her life as a mother? She would happily say that being a mom is the most satisfying feeling she has ever had. Most important chore in motherhood trip is to teach a child to grow up, as nothing equals the happiness of a mother when finally, she knows that she raised a successful human being. As we will learn in this essay, how is Peter’s mother in “Peter the Rabbit” is different than Charles’s mother in “Voices