Wasteland Motherhood

Sylvia Plath is an American poet who writes on the complexities of pregnancy and motherhood throughout her poems. She uses literary devices such as patterns, synesthesia, and cognitive dissonance. These literary devices allow the reader to better understand the topics she touches on when she speaks of pregnancy and motherhood. Although you truly must search for what she’s trying to say in her words, they have great power and meaning.

Plath starts her poem out negatively, ‘barely daring to breathe or Achoo’, with a distinct repetition of the ‘oo’ sounds in ‘Achoo’, ‘do’, ‘shoe’ and ‘du’ creating a childlike, nursery rhyme style of delivery that contrasts greatly with the violent and dark themes. Harwood begins on a significantly more positive if wistful note, ‘forgive me the wisdom I would not learn from you’ positioning her mother as a wise and positive influence. The tones of the poems are very different, as shaped by the poet’s experiences with their parents, with Harwood creating an affirmative, loving description of her relationship with her mother while Plath develops a much darker and sinister view s.

There are many hard jobs in the world. One of the hardest jobs is being a mother. In Rita Dove’s Daystar, we watch as a mother of two struggles to find a moment of solace in the chaotic world that is mothering. In this lyric poem, we find evidence of double entendre, thick imagery, and even some sarcasm. We watch as the mother seeks for a moment where she is “nothing” and nothing can bother her (Dove 21). We even see her achieve this moment of “pure nothing” where she is sat outback, watching the crickets, or the leaves, or the back of her eyelids (7-11, 22). It seems the weight of raising her children without her husband’s assistance is beginning to weigh down on her, and her spirit. In a patriarchal world we can understand how the father would be the one who was off at work, where the mother is the one who is to stay home with the children. This is a system that has been set in place for centuries. Due to the time in which this poem was written, 1986, we feel a sense of dissatisfaction and resentment from the mother about the way the things in her life have turned out. She may feel as though it is not fair for her husband to be the one who gets to leave to go to work all day while she is left to take care of their children. She may also not even realize this is how she feels. Due to the second wave of feminism, we can get a sense that she is unhappy with the role that’s been given to her, as

Brooks creates a horrific imagery that abortions are terrible; and in the poem “The Mother “,she mirrors herself to reality to show the missed opportunities of a child, that women who have aborted their children, will miss. In the poem, it pinpoints a woman’s experience of aborting a child, and then feeling guilty about it, as a mother. In contrast to the author of the poem, Gwendolyn Brooks is a woman who has also aborted a child numerous of times, feels relentless. She communicates with her audience, women, through the poem to recap what the unborn children would become in the future such as singers and workers. “You were born, you had body, you died. It is you never giggled or planned or cried.” When Brooks talk about the missed opportunities that women will never see, she refers to a mother with treacherous experiences. Symbolically, she reflects as a role model for all women who have undergone the situation.

In Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “The Mother”, the author expresses a lot of her thoughts and feelings in order to share her experience. It is written in the first person and the narrator is adopted by the author herself, Gwendolyn Brooks, who embodies a weaken mother. In this poem, Gwendolyn Brooks tries to portray what abortion is for a woman and to describe the harsh truth about how women feel afterwards. Thus, this poem is mostly targeted to aim females and their feelings. First of all, abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. First, the narrator uses many imageries, description, and a precise choice of words to explain this emotional topic of abortion. Second, her use

As we develop from children to adults, our perception of our parents can change drastically. The theme of the loss of innocence is portrayed in both poems, through the relationship with a father. Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Daddy’ is an extremely personal confession about realising her father was not the role model she had believed when she was young. The poem mentions that her father “died before I had time” and she “was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you”. The tone of the entire poem is bitter and sharp as Plath pours all her internalized feelings towards her father into the poem. Gwen Harwood explores the same theme of losing childhood innocence, but in a distinctly different way. The poem tells a story of a small child, who is determined to lose their innocence and is instead “a horny fiend”, sneaking out with their father’s gun. Harwood’s poetry sheds light on the idea of wisdom and growth and the desire children feel to be considered mature. Plath ends her poem in a defiant tone, claiming “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through”, indicating she is done with thinking about or mourning him and has reached a point where she can move on from the grief he has caused her. On the other hand, Harwood’s poem ends grimly, after the child’s father tells them to “End what you have begun” and the child kills the owl, before “I leaned my head upon my father’s arm, and wept, owl blind in

Sylvia Plath’s and Theodore Roethke’s brutal honesty in their writing plainly conveys their individual demons. Not only was each author dealing with their own emotional issues (Plath’s mental illness and Rotheke’s abusive father), they were both living out their lives during uncertain and tumultuous times (World War II and the Great Depression); the torment in their lives manifests in their writing. Sylvia Plath expresses her self-loathing in her poem “Metaphors” by describing her pregnant body in colorful, self-deprecating metaphors (234.) Her poem culminates with the line “Boarded the train there’s no getting off,” which can obviously refer to her pregnancy culminating in the birth of a child but may also refer to the endless pain of her

First addressing the idea of motherhood, Johnson argues that all three of the books critique the notions about and the concept of parenthood. with Friday’s book and Dinnerstein’s book, respectively, analyzing the “damaging effects of the fact that human infants are cared for exclusively by women” (Johnson), and arguing that having a mother who cannot reconcile with herself leads a daughter to being

In this essay I will compare and contrast two literary works, Metaphors by Sylvia Path and the mother by Gwendolyn Brooks. While only fifteen years separate both poems, both works explore motherhood and pregnancy. In, Metaphors

Good morning Mr. Jacobson and Ten crimson. Today I'll be talking about love and how different composers express this through their thoughts and feelings. This can be seen in Alan Pantone’s short story “The Waste Land” love towards life and Oodgeroo Noonuccal poem “Municipal Gum" love towards nature.

Quotes: In Plath’s poem ‘Daddy’, Hughes begins by pointing out that mere human beings were insufficient for Plath’s worship, she needed “a god”. The psychological

Sylvia Plath?s poem "Daddy" describes her feelings of oppression from her childhood and conjures the struggle many women face in a male-dominated society. The conflict of this poem is male authority versus the right of a female to control her own life and be free of male domination. Plath?s conflicts begin with her father and continue into the relationship between her and her husband. This conflict is examined in lines 71-80 of "Daddy" in which Plath compares the damage her father caused to that of her husband.

The poem ‘Morning Song’ by Plath explores her feelings towards her expected role as a mother and her growing love for her child. Plath explores the the strangeness and unnaturalness hidden in the mother/child relationship, which is an unusual take on motherhood, thus showing Plath’s interesting and unique way of describing her thoughts. As Plath was a mother

How Sylvia Plath's Life is Reflected in the Poems Daddy, Morning Song, and Lady Lazarus

“You do not do, you do not do, anymore, black shoe in which I have lived like a foot for thirty years, poor and white, barely daring to breath or achoo.” This is the first stanza of “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath, and delivers the precise amount of bizarre yet relevant images that entice interest. It would be a disgrace to stop analyzing there; nevertheless, there is more revealed throughout this dramatic, sorrowful, and torturous account of a girl’s aversion toward her father. The following paragraphs will discuss the poem at length, covering various elements such as narrative voice, imagery, rhythm, and psychological effect. Plath’s use of each element designs a disturbing glance into the mind of a woman who understood hatred and described it powerfully.