Mothers and fathers People use different means trying to express their feelings to parents. Some people just dont express them thinking it is understandable without words. Some use just words, the others express their feelings in poems, songs, books. How are these feelings expressed in the undermentioned works of literature? What are these feelings? In her poem The Courage that my Mother Had Edna St. Vincent Millay does not describe her feelings directly. But we see love to her mother in every line.
She is speaking about mothers heritage: The golden brooch my mother wore she left behind for me to wear, but there are things in life which are much wealthier than gold. It is mothers courage like a rock which was in doing everything possible to raise her daughter. And we feel gratitude to mother for this. This mothers courage supported her in life, and she still needs it. And when the daughter says that she would like her mother left this courage to her instead of the brooch, we understand that it really means she would like her mother did not leave her. We feel the authors hurt and deep sense of sorrow that her mother had died, had left her daughter.
Very similar are the feelings of Gordon Parks in his The Funeral, devoted to his father. The author, the same as the previous one, doesnt describe his feelings directly. From the first sight the poem seems like picture of childhood reminiscences. But everything has changed since then, the great mountains of my childhood turned into mere hills, raging rivers into gentle streams, the wide road into a crooked path of dust. Everything but not his father, as only the giant that was my father remained the same. Sure, things havent changed in reality, what has really changed is the authors perception of them.
The Essay on My Mother’s Memoirs, My Father’s Lie
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them" Unfortunately, some children aren't able to grow up with both parents around, and in other cases both parents exist with multiple problems. With this happening it is hard for children to actually complete their goals and actually do what they want when they are older, thus not allowing them to achieve greatness. ...
Everything seems smaller and unimportant from adults point of view, except the love to his father which remained the same as it was. And in this poem we also feel a deep sorrow of the poet whose father is not with him any more, which resembles Millays feelings. In one more work, this time a prose one, autobiographical My Left Foot by Christy Brown, we can find feelings of a boy, whose mother had never given up hope, and her belief helped him to develop himself. Mothers love brought him to conscious life, though doctors said that having such diagnosis (cerebral palsy) he was mentally defected and would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. And we see difference in feelings between father, who treats the child according to doctors diagnosis, and mother, whose love is unconditional, who believes in her sons intelligence, and makes him love and believe too. And it is not only great love and respect that the author expresses in his book, but also a gratitude for everything, his mother did for him and the whole family, for her strength and courage in treating her disabled child and teaching him to live a full life, even if he was able to control only his left foot. So, in the works of Millay, Parks and Brown the childrens feelings to their parents are rather similar.
They are feelings of love and gratitude for everything their parents had done for them so that they could become educated, develop their talents. But in Jacqueline Balcells The Enchanted Raisin the childrens feelings are quite the opposite, at least in the beginning. They are selfish, unruly and mischievous, their constant pranks and screams, their disrespect make their mothers life absolutely wretched. This caused their mother to wrinkle, shrink and turn into a raisin. And only after their difficult life with stepmother who detested the children they could compare and understand, what their mother did for them, and how selfish and unbearable they had been. Only then they started to value their mother and changed their ungrateful behavior, and the family lived happily ever after.
The Essay on Romeo And Juliet Parents Life Draper
In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, set in Verona, Italy, Juliet's own happiness is put on hold due to her parents authority and the lack of control children had in the sixteenth century. John W. Draper's excerpt "Shakespeare's Star-Crossed Lovers" also supports my outlook on how Juliet's life is being controlled by her parents. Juliet is a thirteen year old Capulet who's family is in a ...
One can think that this story has nothing in common with the previous three. Really, if the previous are about love and respect to parents, The Enchanted Raisin shows the opposite attitude. Nevertheless, they have some common features: sorrow for losing their parents and evaluating things the parents did. Very often people do not value their parents when they are close, and start feeling sorrow and pain after having lost them. So, one of ideas, which unite all these works of literature, is a feeling of love to parents, the idea of being grateful and appreciate parents when they are still with us, and dont hesitate to express these feelings of love, gratitude and respect. Bibliography. Balcells, Jacqueline The Enchanted Raisin, Latin American Literary Review Press, 1988.
Brown, Christy My Left Foot, HarperCollins Publishers, 1998. Millay, Edna St. Vincent, The courage that my mother had, at Geocities, 23 Feb. 2005, http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/6865/milla yad.html Parks, Gordon The Funeral.
