The great amount of respect and admiration a child has for their mother’s courage is abundantly evident throughout Edna St. Vincent Millay’s, “The Courage That My Mother Had.” Simultaneously, the poem conveys feelings of betrayal. Millay’s poem, through strong associations with equality as strong words, such as “rock” and “granite,” infers the general theme of the poem and the amount of titular courage the poem’s mother possessed. The narrator uses several different types of figurative language to create thoughts and emotions for the reader. Millay’s use of metaphors and clever word associations in her poem reveal to the reader the intricate emotional attachments of the child to her mother and the manner in which the child valued her mother.
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The first two lines of the initial stanza begin, “The courage that my mother had/Went with her, and is with her still” (Millay, lns 1-2). These two lines establish the courageous qualities along with the defunct of Edna’s mother; but, also for the audacity she took with her when she passed away. Henceforth, Millay feels forgotten and cheated since she was not given the courage by inheritance of her mother. In the same stanza, lines 3-4, Millay compares a rock to her loved one, “Rock from New England quarried;/Now granite in a granite hill” (Millay, lns 3-4). When rock is utilized for marketing purposes, it must be cut out from a larger piece. In the third line of the stanza, the rock represents the mother, who was born and raised in New England developed from other similarly strong willed and undaunted people. Here, the speaker uses a metaphor to describe her mother’s bravery, and also to reveal how strong, enduring, and unshakable her mother’s courage was by comparing it to a rock. Edna’s tone is one of admiration, respect, and pride for her mother. The reference to New England suggests that her mother was from this area; her aspect was chiseled from her environment, like granite from a quarry. In the fourth line of this stanza, the speaker uses metaphors like “granite” to emphasize her mother’s strength …show more content…
Millay is not resentful, yet she yearns for her mother’s courage. The speaker seems to recognize while one may like and respect the good qualities in others, one cannot necessarily adopt those good qualities for him or herself. Furthermore, Millay deeply grieves the loss of that trait which she profoundly admires about her mother. The poem’s child not only admires her mother’s strength, but she also needs that strength now more than ever. While the speaker is still living, her mother still appears to be at rest and is buried, while the daughter does not yet have a guiding tool to help her through her loss. The speaker implies, it is unjust her mother took that tenacity with her to the grave, while the daughter needs it now more than ever. In the final stanza, line 11 repeats the simile which compares the mother’s courage to a rock, “That courage like a rock. . .” (Millay, line 11). This repetition serves to emphasize a final time in comparison with the mother’s bravery and her daughter’s lack of bravery. The speaker ends the poem acknowledging how difficult it is to live without her mother’s
The first two lines of the initial stanza begin, “The courage that my mother had/Went with her, and is with her still” (Millay, lns 1-2). These two lines establish the courageous qualities along with the defunct of Edna’s mother; but, also for the audacity she took with her when she passed away. Henceforth, Millay feels forgotten and cheated since she was not given the courage by inheritance of her mother. In the same stanza, lines 3-4, Millay compares a rock to her loved one, “Rock from New England quarried;/Now granite in a granite hill” (Millay, lns 3-4). When rock is utilized for marketing purposes, it must be cut out from a larger piece. In the third line of the stanza, the rock represents the mother, who was born and raised in New England developed from other similarly strong willed and undaunted people. Here, the speaker uses a metaphor to describe her mother’s bravery, and also to reveal how strong, enduring, and unshakable her mother’s courage was by comparing it to a rock. Edna’s tone is one of admiration, respect, and pride for her mother. The reference to New England suggests that her mother was from this area; her aspect was chiseled from her environment, like granite from a quarry. In the fourth line of this stanza, the speaker uses metaphors like “granite” to emphasize her mother’s strength …show more content…
Millay is not resentful, yet she yearns for her mother’s courage. The speaker seems to recognize while one may like and respect the good qualities in others, one cannot necessarily adopt those good qualities for him or herself. Furthermore, Millay deeply grieves the loss of that trait which she profoundly admires about her mother. The poem’s child not only admires her mother’s strength, but she also needs that strength now more than ever. While the speaker is still living, her mother still appears to be at rest and is buried, while the daughter does not yet have a guiding tool to help her through her loss. The speaker implies, it is unjust her mother took that tenacity with her to the grave, while the daughter needs it now more than ever. In the final stanza, line 11 repeats the simile which compares the mother’s courage to a rock, “That courage like a rock. . .” (Millay, line 11). This repetition serves to emphasize a final time in comparison with the mother’s bravery and her daughter’s lack of bravery. The speaker ends the poem acknowledging how difficult it is to live without her mother’s