Abortion In Gwendolyn Brooks The Mother

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Imagine how a woman may feel right after the woman has followed through with having an abortion. The poem, "The Mother," by Gwendolyn Brooks, is a poem about a woman trying to describe her feelings after she has gone through with having one or more abortions. The poem leads readers to believe the woman ultimately feels guilty about aborting the babies. The readers are led to believe that the woman is feeling guilty when the woman begins to list all of the things the babies will never be able to do and the things the babies will never get to become because they are lifeless. The reason the babies will never get to do anything is because of the choice the woman made to abort them. The woman gives vivid descriptions of what her aborted babies look …show more content…

5-7). The woman also tells readers about the things the babies will never get to grow up and do. The readers see that the woman lists some professions that the babies will never get to do when the poem says, "The singers and workers that never handled the air..." (I, 4). The babies will never experience growing up and becoming anything because their "mother" took that opportunity away from them when she decided to abort them. The babies have no opportunities because they do not have a life at all. The readers see that they are lifeless when the poem says, "Since anyhow you are dead" (I, 24). Not only does Gwendolyn Brooks use repetition as a literary device in the poem, "The Mother," she also uses irony. The third literary device that Gwendolyn Brooks uses in the poem, "The Mother," is not just repetition; she chooses irony as another literary device. It is ironic that the woman says that she loves the babies even though the woman is the reason they are lifeless. The woman says that she loved the babies, but she chose to terminate them. Aborting a baby is not love. The readers see the third literary device irony when the woman claims to love the babies by saying,

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