Poetry Analysis Essay

Nawfal Sentissi
06/21/2013
ENG 112
Poetry essay

An Unwanted Crime.

Today, abortion is a big issue concerning women because for years it had been considered illegal. It continued to be a big debate that borders religion and ethics. Religious people are against abortion as it involves the termination of the unborn child that deserves to live as anybody else. Moreover, legalizing abortion would lead to irresponsible sexual behavior in the society. “The mother “ by Gwendolyn Brooks is a short poem that shows how a mother feels after having an abortion. The author shows her pain to the reader by setting her poem into the first and second person to make her feelings realistic and touchable. She says that she is regretful for the abortions that she had, but explains that she had no other choices. She chose an ironical title by calling the person “The mother “ even though she isn’t a real mother since she lost her children. “The mother “ by Gwendolyn Brooks shows how a mother can be hurt after an abortion by describing the hurtful memories, the remorse, the heartbroken love, and the confusion of the mother. Memories is all what remain to the mother when she loses her child, and more specifically hurtful memories. “Abortions will not let you forget “ ( Brooks, line 1). On the first line, the author start showing a mother who is unable to forget the loss of her children, trying to live with memories that won’t let her move on. She describes the pain that the mothers go through after having an abortion, even if it was the only solution that she had at that time. She uses the plural to show that the mother had more than one abortion, and on the second line she says “You remember the children you got that you did not get “ ( Brooks, line 2). She confirms that the mother lost more than one child and she sticks with the memories considering them as the only link that remains to the mother. In the second paragraph, the author suddenly change her poem to a first person point of view. It makes the reader more interested and touched by the poem, seeing that the author is talking about her own experience and her own pain. "I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children," ( Brooks, line 11). The author makes her text more realistic by describing how those memories are affecting her life, she is haunted by her children voices that she hears in her mind. There is no such love as a mother love towards her children. Reading this poem, the reader might wonder if the author loved her children. Considering that if she loved her children, she wouldn’t “ kill “ them. “Believe me, I loved you all” ( Brooks, line 31). The author confess that she loved her children as any other mother. She uses the pronoun “ you “ forgetting the reader and only focusing on her unborn children. She knew them and loved them even if they weren’t born because they were a part of her and they lived for a certain time in her body. She emphasizes that she loved them to let them and the reader know that she loved them although she did what she had to do.” Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not

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