Telemechaus
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In a world in which abortion is considered either a womans right or a sin against God, the poem “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks gives a voice to a mother lamenting her aborted children through three stanzas in which a warning is given to mothers, an admission of guilt is made, and an apology to the dead is given. The poet-speaker, the mother, as part of her memory addresses the children that she “got that [she] did not get” (2). The shift in voice from stanza to stanza allows Brooks to capture the grief associated with an abortion by not condemning her actions, nor excusing them; she merely grieves for what might have been. The narrators longing and regret over the children she will never have is highlighted by the change in tone throughout the poem.
A quick overview of “The Mother” indicates three stanzas, each of which has a different length than the other two and each stanza is of an alternate rhyme scheme. The first stanza is comprised of ten lines of five rhymed couplets. The audience is addressed in this stanza, listing all of the things a mother will never experience with the children she has aborted, “Abortions will not let you forget [] You will never neglect or beat / Them, or silence or buy with a sweet” (1, 5-6). The rhyming in the first stanza is reminiscent of childrens poems, which is appropriate considering the poem is directed toward the speakers dead children. Although most of the poem rhymes, there are places where Brooks deviates from the poems rhythm which is interrupted due to sudden statements, “Since anyhow you are dead. / Or rather, or instead, / You were never made” (24-26). This causes readers to pause and question why such statements are made. It shows the narrators thought process; perhaps she does not think that abortion is a crime if the child was “never made.” Brooks may want readers to consider whether or not they believe abortion is a crime, “A poem that both pro-life and pro-choice groups have championed at different times, “The Mother” eludes easy interpretation, but provides an important look at the problems and issues involved in the abortion debate” (Stanford 1). It is possible that the narrator is trying to reassure herself in this passage by claiming that the child was never made, but then why write the poem to her unborn children?
Directly addressing the aborted children, the mother is able to relate her experience to other women who may be contemplating abortion; perhaps the narrator is trying to warn other mothers with tone and diction:
You will remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye. (2-10)
The word “remember” in line two may be considered a play on words; re-member, or dismemberment as in the case of an abortion. “Damp small pulps” in line three sounds animalistic, as if Brooks is saying “pups” instead of “pulps.” If the word “pulp” was in fact intended, it is then part of the poems imagery, indicating something that is crushed, squashed or pulverized, which is not a pleasant picture when discussing an abortion. In either case, the use of the word “damp” indicates wetness; a word that one might associate with an abortion. In the last two lines of the stanza, using of words like “luscious” and “snack,” compares food with a child that has been aborted–quite the grotesque image. If the reader is anti-abortion, then in the last two lines of the stanza, the narrator does not come off as particularly motherly, but rather, sounds almost like she is going to eat her children.
The first stanza is not only representative of the narrators voice and how deeply regretful the mother feels, but also the less tangible things that are considered part of motherhood; the sigh of regret a parent my feel for leaving a child; the bribes (buying with a sweet), punishments (beat), and mistakes (neglect). It is in this stanza that Brooks can show sadness by the beautiful parts of motherhood that will not be experienced by a woman who aborts her baby. It is through the second-person you that Brooks is able to draw the reader in and shift to the first-person I voice in the second stanza and tell more of her experiences.
The second stanza is much longer than the first and it is in line fourteen that the shift of object goes from “you” to addressing the aborted baby as “Sweets.” This stanza is all about memories that the narrator experiences. Slant rhyme is shown in lines seven and ten which end with the words “reach” and “aches,” and have a rhymed couplet in between them. While the first part of the second stanza is rhymed “a, b, c, b, c,” there is a break in the rhyme with lines thirteen and twenty. The first stanza reads like a lullaby that flows smoothly, but this ultimately fails because the tone of the poem shifts greatly. The shift from rhyming couplets in the first stanza to a break in rhyme scheme in the second stanza suggests the poem had to change. The tone in the second stanza is more serious than the first, listing experiences the “unmade” children will never know, including: names, loves, marriages, giggles, aches, and plans. The moral issue of whether or not abortion is acceptable can also be argued in this stanza.
The very first sentence of the second stanza uses the words, “killed children,” which is pretty blunt considering it is the mothers actions which ended a pregnancy. Not only is this line direct, but it is also the first time in which