Charney, Sparks, Swanson
AP Engl Lit
Summer 2000
Clemson University
the mother
Abortions will not let you forget. A
Personification is going on here—abortions don’t have power to do anything
Surprising that a poem entitled "the mother" should start out with abortion: is this the first hint of dilectic in the poem? Tension between mother and abortion
Sentence is short and declarative
Pronoun "you" almost makes it accusatory. Why did she choose to say "you" rather than "I"?
You universalizes, makes it less personal
Attention-getting lead. Forget what? Sets up some suspense
You remember the children you got that you did not
get, A
reversal—a paradox? "got" has some connotations: biblical? Begat?
Interesting tension between "not… forget" and "got" and "not get"
Colloquial language
"remember" has some paradox too – "re-member"; abortion dismembers
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair, B
The singers and workers that never handled the air. B
Contrast btw fetuses and potential lives; also strong unhuman vs. human
Ambiguity here because the image is of just-born baby animals
Images of damp animals tend to be negative while the singers and workers feels more active/ positive
Strong renonance to Randall Jarrell, "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Some of us think that first line is claustrophobic; some think the animals are in the womb.
Ah! We are misreading "pulp" for "pup"! NB Pulps ties back to re-member/ dismember.
"handle the air" is interesting
Shift of responsibility—as if it was their responsibility to breathe
You will never neglect or beat C
"never" sets up absolute—parallel structure.
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet. C
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb D
Or scuttle off ghosts that come. D
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious
sigh, E
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye. E
"You" becomes really powerful"
Enjambment—Line breaks emphasis "Them" not being there
Degrees of badness (false duality between neglect and beat but silencing and bribery are not that postive either)
Images of comforting and protecting are some what strangley expressed: "wind" has multi-le ambiguities—can be seen as mechanical; can be seen as bandaging, can be seen as finishing
Intense irony in last two lines: comparison of child with food is grotesque—as if speaker is wicked witch. But this is also a positive image of how much she loves the children, returning to look at them (which is actually what the poem is doing: re-membering the children, making them live again by creating images of them in the poem’s images.
Contrast btw "you" and "them" is interesting
Ironic that the lament is that you’ll never leave them.
I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. F
The first line that breaks the rhyme scheme—therefore calls special attention to itself. Also pronoun changes to "I" and "my" at the same time that "them" changes to "children".
Also is pretty blunt in use of word "killed"
"dim" is a negative word—not just that they are hard to see ; dim also has connotations of faded, not seeing or understanding clearly. "not bright"—does this have a shade of excuse?
They are coming in on the air, but they can’t handle the air; this is the first time they have voices.
I have contracted. I have eased G
"Contracted"—labor pains, but also pains of the abortion. Pun on "contracted" signed-for the abortion, which is also a contract to have someone killed. Contract also means to get smaller—
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck. H
"ease"—does this make it easier for her. ease implies weaning. Contraction opposite of ease
Progression from "them" to "children" to "dears" to "Sweets"
Breast feeding is a denial they were ever pulps.
Echo of enjambment. "Could" implies they had a possibility
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized G
S sounds sound negative, snaky, sinful—or is it soothing?
Your luck H
Who is/are "Sweets"? Is it the children?
Use of subjunctive—false use of "if"? do we believe that she did / didn’t do these things (sin)? Is it a pulp or a child? That is part of the tension
Her conscience—has she actually killed a human or not? Does she know when life begins?
The "if" is both true and false—she had the abortion, yes, but were they truly children?
1945—BC options limited. Had a connotation of prostitute-ish people only (multiple abortions due to lack of access vs being careless)
And your lives from your unfinished reach, I
deliberate vs not-echoes get / got—also is she trying again to get off the hook? Rationalize? She did it intentionally but not maliciously
If I stole your births and your names, J
Your straight baby tears and your games, J
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths, K
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, K
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate. L*
"deliberate"—consider alternatives, "de-liberate" (though in 1945, liberate as a word didn’t carry feminist baggage)
again, a break in the rhyme scheme takes place here
Though why should I whine, M
She categorizes it as a crime, but still avoids blame to a certain degree
Whine that the crime was other than mine?-- M
Since anyhow you are dead. N
Or rather, or instead, N
You were never made. O
3rd line is particularly blunt, and sounds flippant (anyhow)—almost an acceptance?
2nd line here—who else could be to blame? The doctor? The kids (less likely)? Society? The man who got her pregnant?
The assonance with the repeated "I" sound is a whiny sound itself—is this an admission that she is, indeed, whining?
Were the kids ever made? Or not? Is abortion a sin of omission or commission? Are you killing or failing to complete something?
But that too, I am afraid, O
"that"=you were never made? Or the entire previous quandry? What is the antecedent of "that"?
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be
said? P*
You were born, you had body, you died. Q
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried. Q
born, body, died—Jesus imagery? The innocent, sacrificial one? Confrontation of sinning?
Planned—opposite of giggle and cry, rational vs emotional ideas (along with her struggle in the poem of rational and emotional dealings with her own actions)
Believe me, I loved you all.
Decides on an emotional dealing with it? That she made the correct choice rationally but still feels the emotion?
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I
loved you
All.
Still a mother, despite having never held her children, etc.
Isolation of the word "all"—all her kids, all her love, all what else?
She is the mother of her imagination—creating the images in her own mind