analysis of "the mother" from Internet for your further knowledge

[FreeSlaveMan]

The Grieving of The Mother
"The Mother," by Gwendolyn Brooks, is about a mother who has
experienced a number of abortions and now has remorse. You can feel
the remorse she is going through when reading the poem. She is
regretful, yet explains that she had no other choice. It is a
heartfelt poem where she talks bout how she will not be able to do
certain things for the children that she aborted. This poem may be a
reflection of what many other women are dealing with.

The first stanza starts off with "Abortions will not let you forget,"
which sounds like the woman is talking in general terms. She is
talking about how future experiences will never take place. Things
like "You will never wind up the sucking-thumb or scuttle off the
ghosts that come," are some of the many that will not be done. In a
way, the women being told this are reminded of the pain they are going
through.

In the second stanza, the woman is talking about her pain and loss. In
"I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children," she is haunted by her own children's faint cries that she
hears in her mind. She then makes the transition from telling the
reader to explaining to her children why she did what she did. It
feels as though she can't control her emotions and finally breaks
down. She forgets about the reader and focuses on her children. She is
asking for some understanding when she says, "Believe that in my
deliberateness I was not deliberate. . . . Though why should I whine,"
she asks, "Whine that the crime was other than mine."

She feels that she did what she had to do. She probably couldn't
handle having kids at the time because of her situation, whatever it
was, so she had an abortion. She probably didn't think it was a crime,
but society has made her believe it is and she feels guilty. She tries
to brush it off when she says, "Since you are dead," but then
admonishes herself by euphemizing the meaning by saying, "or rather,
or instead, you were never made."

In the third stanza, she picks up where she left in the second stanza,
but this time she tries to figure out what she did. She doesn't know
what to label what she had done or is probably afraid to label it.
"You were born, you had body, you died," she says blankly. She tries
to make excuses for what she did, but her emotions conquer her denial.
"Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All." She knew her children because they were a part of her being that
they were in her body. She emphasizes that she loved them to let them
(and herself) know that she really loved them although she did what
she had to do.

Analysis of The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks

For this assignment, I chose the poem "The Mother" by Gwendolyn
Brooks. This poem is generally about abortion and the feelings a
mother has. It's about the remembrance of the children aborted and the
little things children do that the mother will miss. Many images are
conveyed throughout this entire poem. When Brooks mentions "the
singers and workers that never handled the air" it gives off an air of
sadness. You get the feeling that Brooks is trying to convey, to the
mother, a sense of longing for those little things mothers are know to
be good at. This is shown in the line, "you will never wind up the
sucking thumb or scuttle off ghosts that come" .Then when she starts
to address the child saying, "you were born, you had a body, you
died." its hard not to feel some sadness or even a feeling of
injustice.
All the incidents that I mentioned in the previous paragraph are among
the many vivid images in this work. Brooks obviously either had
experience with abortions or she felt very strongly about the issue.
The feelings of sadness, remorse, longing, and unfulfilled destinies
were arranged so that even someone with no experience or opinion on
this issue, really felt strong emotions when reading "The Mother" .One
image that is so vivid that it stayed with me through the entire poem
was within the third line. Brooks writes, " the damp small pulps with
little or no hair" .
In the last half of the poem (lines 20 to 33), she changes who she is
addressing. Instead of telling the mother what she is missing she is
now talking to the "child" .When she does this it expresses other
emotions. These new emotions are ones of sorrow, love, searching for
forgiveness etc. The arrangement of the poem, going from talking to
the mother to talking to the aborted child, is appropriate in my
opinion. It helps the poem to flow easily and makes it simple to
follow. I find most poems hard to picture in my head , but as I read
"The Mother" I can imagine the whole situation happening.
In the last lines of the poem the woman attempts to reassure the child
that she loved it with all her heart. She says, "Believe me, I knew
you, though faintly, and I loved , I loved you
All." Although at times morbid, this is a beautiful poem. It displays
true emotions. I can imagine that this had to be a very personal yet
difficult poem to write. In order to convey such raw emotions the
writer has to be close to this subject in one way or another.
For someone who is pro-choice on the abortion issue, the images that
surfaced in the poem gave me an enlightening view of the other side.