Linda Pastan Metaphors

521 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ethics poem summary of Linda pastan

The poem that I will be explicating is Marks By: Linda Pastan. Pastan uses one metaphoric theme throughout this poem to get her point across. The way that Pastan sets up the main point is by framing how a mom or wife is looked at by their children, she represents this by receiving letter grades from her husband and children as representation in how she is not good enough or appreciated for what she is doing for her family. The mother represented in the poem is not actually being given letter grades, this however allows Pastan to connect emotionally with her readers so they can see that she is feeling underappreciated and being treated like she is not good enough. During this process the mother’s emotions are brought to life. Throughout Marks …show more content…

There is an understood analogy between both the speaker and the audience, by connecting the parallel of life events with letter grades. The connection between letter grades and the mother’s emotions of judgement are brought to life and understood through the use of the letter grades. The first two lines of this poem grab the reader’s attention, “My husband gives me an A, for last nights’ supper.” The mother of this poem is less then happy when it comes to the result of how her family is treating her. They are grading her on what she is doing but not being appreciative of all that she is doing for them. This theme continues throughout the poem, her son says, “I am averages, an average mother, but if I put my mind to it I could improve.” In this poem the mother is belittled and put down for what she is doing. The father of the household taught the children that it was okay to speak to her this way. They are ungrateful for what they have and instead express negative feminism towards their mom. The daughter expresses the same kind of negative feminism towards her mom when she says,” my daughter believes in pass fail and tells me I pass.” The vibe that is continually expressed throughout this poem is that women and mothers are not being treated with the respect that they

Show More
Related

  • Bruce Dawe - Americanized

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stanza three again shows doubtfulness about the mother’s love. We see how the mother locks her child in because she fears the modern world. She sees the world as dangers and especially fears men. Her fear of men is emphasized by the italics used. In the final line of the stanza, the mother puts her son on a plastic pot. This is somewhat symbolic of the consumeristic society i.e. manufactured and cheap.

    Read More

  • Analyzing The Poem 'The Slave Mother, A Tale Of Ohio'

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    Because this woman is a slave, she has no right to her own child, therefore she cannot claim him as her own. No matter how much she loves him or how much joy that he brings into her dreary life, he can never be hers, and her heart breaks when he is taken away from her. Mothers have a very special bond with their children; they feel a love that can be described as much stronger than any other kind of love in the world. This love that is felt by the slave mother in this poem literally changes the tone of the poem when the narrator speaks about the mother and her son. Despite the anguish and despair that she feels, the thought of her child can lift her spirits, only for the child to be taken away from her. Because of her race, she cannot claim any right to love her own child. As a woman, her right to be a mother and raise and love her child was taken away from her. The slave mother had no rights to herself or her own children, and her race and gender are the main causes for

    Read More

  • Analysis of My Papa's Waltz

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    Indeed, the satirical tone of this poem suggests that the speaker is somewhat critical of his father. The whiskey smell, the roughness, the inconsiderate and reckless actions are under scrutiny. The mother's frowning countenance suggests she too is rather unhappy with the scene. However, the winning tone of the poem is the light and comical one.

    Read More

  • A Literary Analysis Of 'A Story' By Li-Young Lee

    1200 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Graded Paper By Mark Halliday

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    A poem is usually developed by a certain method or a style that the poet uses to help the reader to understand the meaning of the poem. The poem Graded Paper written by the poet Mark Halliday, is about a teacher who is grading a student’s paper and giving feedback on it. In the poem the poet uses different techniques to support and develop the poem. In the poem, the teacher who is grading the paper uses special tone while grading the paper. The teacher is the poem uses a tone of caring and helpful to the student. Although, throughout the poem, the teacher gives negative comments to the student, at the end the teacher gives the student an A-. This is the irony that the poet uses in the poem. Another technique the author uses

    Read More

  • Americanized: Poem Analysis

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    This darkly satirical poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother is synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of ‘She loves him’.

    Read More

  • My Papa's Waltz And The Ballad Of Birmingham Family Bonds

    1365 Words  | 3 Pages

    While reading the poem the reader can imply that the father provides for his wife and son, but deals with the stress of having to work hard in a bad way. He may do what it takes to make sure his family is stable, but while doing so he is getting drunk and beating his son. For example, in lines 1 and 2, “The whisky on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy” symbolizes how much the father was drinking. He was drinking so much, the scent was too much to take. Lines 7 and 8, “My mother’s countenance, Could not unfrown itself.” This helps the reader understand the mother’s perspective on things. She is unhappy seeing what is going on which is why she is frowning. Although she never says anything it can be implied that because of the fact that the mother never speaks up just shows how scared she could be of her drunk husband. Lines 9 and 10, “The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle”, with this line the reader is able to see using imagery that the father is a hard worker because as said above his knuckle was battered. The reader can also take this in a different direction by saying that his hand was battered from beating his child as well. Lastly, lines 13 and 14, “You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt” As well as the quote above this quote shows that the father was beating his child with his dirty hand from all the work the father has

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Sestina For The Working Mother

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    Fulfilling the roles of both mother and breadwinner creates an assortment of reactions for the narrator. In the poem’s opening lines, she commences her day in the harried role as a mother, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle with balancing priorities. After saying goodbye to her children she rushes out the door, transitioning from both, one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day continues, when reflecting on

    Read More

  • Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mother, however, refuses to acknowledge the child as anything but a child is a major conflict in this poem. Because she refers to her as a?child? and calls her?baby? it is clear that the mother does not take the child?s pleas seriously. The mother is certain that she knows what is best for her child and that the child?s feelings and ideas are unimportant.

    Read More

  • The Boat, by Alistair Macleod

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Heritage By Linda Hogan

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this poem, there is a young woman and her loving mother discussing their heritage through their matrilineal side. The poem itself begins with what she will inherit from each family member starting with her mother. After discussing what she will inherit from each of her family members, the final lines of the poem reflect back to her mother in which she gave her advice on constantly moving and never having a home to call hers. For example, the woman describes how her father will give her “his brown eyes” (Line 7) and how her mother advised her to eat raw deer (Line 40). Perhaps the reader is suggesting that she is the only survivor of a tragedy and it is her heritage that keeps her going to keep safe. In the first two lines of the poem, she explains how the young woman will be taking the lines of her mother’s (Lines 1-2). This demonstrates further that she is physically worried about her features and emotionally worried about taking on the lineage of her heritage. Later, she remembered the years of when her mother baked the most wonderful food and did not want to forget the “smell of baking bread [that warmed] fined hairs in my nostrils” (Lines 3-4). Perhaps the young woman implies that she is restrained through her heritage to effectively move forward and become who she would like to be. When reading this poem, Native American heritage is an apparent theme through the lifestyle examples, the fact lineage is passed through woman, and problems Native Americans had faced while trying to be conquested by Americans. Overall, this poem portrays a confined, young woman trying to overcome her current obstacles in life by accepting her heritage and pursuing through her

    Read More

  • Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club

    1520 Words  | 4 Pages

    The rifts between mothers and daughters continue to separate them, but as the daughters get older they become more tolerant of their mothers.  They learn they do not know everything about their mothers, and the courage their mothers showed during their lives is astounding.  As they get older they learn they do not know everything, and that their mothers can still teach them much about life.  They grow closer to their mothers and learn to be proud of their heritage and their culture.  They acquire the wisdom of understanding, and that is the finest feeling to have in the world.

    Read More

  • Parent and Son Relationship in one of Nye, Naomi Shihab´s Poems

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a typical family, there are parents that expected to hear things when their teenager is rebelling against them: slamming the door, shouting at each other, and protests on what they could do or what they should not do. Their little baby is growing up, testing their wings of adulthood; they are not the small child that wanted their mommy to read a book to them or to kiss their hurts away and most probably, they are thinking that anything that their parents told them are certainly could not be right. The poem talks about a conflict between the author and her son when he was in his adolescence. In the first stanza, a misunderstanding about a math problem turns into a family argument that shows the classic rift between the generation of the parent and the teenager. Despite the misunderstandings between the parent and child, there is a loving bond between them. The imagery, contrasting tones, connotative diction, and symbolism in the poem reflect these two sides of the relationship.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Parturition By Mina Loy

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    This, in fact, is an example of “dynamic decomposition” of which the speaker claims she understands nothing. The ironic contradiction of form and content underlines the contradiction between the women’s presentation of her outer self and that of her inner self. The poem concludes with the line “’Let us go home she is tired and wants to go to bed.’” which is a statement made by the man. Hence, it “appears to give the last word to the men” but, in reality, it mirrors the poem’s opening lines and emphasises the role the woman assumes on the outside as well as her inner awareness and criticism. This echoes Loy’s proclamation in her “Feminist Manifesto” in which she states that women should “[l]eave off looking to men to find out what [they] are not [but] seek within [themselves] to find out what [they] are”. Therefore, the poem presents a “new woman” confined in the traditional social order but resisting it as she is aware and critical of

    Read More

  • Feminism In Girl By Jamaica Kincaid

    1189 Words  | 3 Pages

    She only allows her to see her worth in having a clean home and a satisfied man. She never once tells the girl to follow her dreams or even talk about what they are. The mother only keeps on instructing her on even the simplest things like smiling : “...this is how you smile to someone you don 't like too much;this is how you smile at someone you don 't like at all;this is how you smile to someone you like completely...” this poem is filled with the phrases “this is how”. “ don’t do this”, and “ be sure to..” the speaker does not even give the girl a chance to speak her mind or form her own thoughts. The young girl was only able to get one sentence out the whole poem : “...but what if the baker won 't let me feel the bread?”

    Read More

More about Linda Pastan Metaphors

Open Document