✓ The Mother Analysis
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"The Mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks is a very heartfelt poem about the depression she underwent after multiple abortions. The title is meaning of a relationship of a woman to a child she has given birth to. In the first stanza the poet displays many actions a mother experiences such as scaring away ghosts for her child. In lines 9-10, Brooks shows the pain of a mother and her separated child as she leaves them for a small amount of time. But, unable to bear the pain she goes back to check on the child. In line 11, the poet has high guilt of the abortions and she hallucinate hearing their voices. In lines 18-22, Brooks shows all the actions a child goes through that had been taken away from them. For example they will never have the chance to marry or have tummy aches but also a chance she took from herself which was breastfeeding. In line 23, "Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate" means she was conscious and fully aware but was very confused about her decisions. In lines 26-29 ," Since somehow you are dead./ ...You were never made." shows her confusion and denial between the baby dying and the baby never being conceived. In line 29, "You were born, you had a body, you died." shows the quick life it had, it was alive, it grew, and it was killed, not even given an actual life. In line 31, "Believe me, I loved you all." shows she is remorseful over the abortions, but she wants them all to know she loved them and was sorry for her ruthless decisions.
✓ Literary Devices Analysis
In this poem Brooks uses multiple literary elements to show a powerful state of depression she was experiencing after many abortions. In line 1 "abortions will not let you forget" is an example of personification. The poet is giving abortions the power to not forgive, which is a human characteristic. In lines 3-4 "the damp small pulps while little or no hair,/ the singers and workers that never handled the air" the poet uses an ambiguity. Brooks gives two very different alternatives to the lives of the unborn children, one being negative where they were to look like newborn baby animals, and the other being positive where they would have became a singer or hard worker. This shows a high contrast between fetuses and potential lives. In line 10 "you will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,/ return for a snack of them, with a gobbling-eye" Brooks uses strong irony. The comparison of a child to being food is very preposterous as the poet becomes a wicked witch. But, also these lines have a strong positive outlook as to show how much the mother loves her child and has returned to check on them. In line 11, the poet uses personification as she gives the wind voices because she hears their voices as it blows. In lines 24-25 the poet uses an assonance as she repeats the sound of the vowel "I" in whine, crime, and mine as they are being repeated. But this shows how the author is whining due to her decisions.