Frances Harper's Poem, The Slave Mother

In the nineteenth century, there was a rising in African American poets, with whom one being Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Though she did not live a troublesome life like most of the African American’s during her time, she was heavily impacted by the lives of the unfortunate. Through the lives of others, she was inspired to write many of her greatest works. In Harper’s poem, “The Slave Mother,” there comes full recognition of a woman’s desire for freedom, and a better life for the one she loves most. With Frances Harper’s use of imagery throughout, ”The Slave Mother,” she is able to visualize, and uncover the true terrors that are at hand. Many of Frances Harper’s utmost works were inspired from life events that she witnessed. She lived in an era when slavery was taking over the nation, and every slave there was forced to fight for his or her freedom. Fortunately for Harper, she was born a free slave, and never experienced the consequences of slavery, however those who suffered, affected her life heavily. Though these unfortunate times impacted her significantly, she wrote some of her greatest works because of them. She is an inspirational abolitionist and is considered to be, “the most popular African American poet of the nineteenth century” (Levine 1644). Though she …show more content…
It reads, “She is a mother pale with fear, / Her boy clings to her side, / And in her kyrtle vainly tries/ His trembling form to hide” (13-16). In these lines it pictures a frightened mother, but more importantly a terrified boy. Although the boy tries to hide under his mother’s dress, she knows that she cannot protect him. Harper uses this imagery, because she knows most readers can find this to be more relatable than a mother praying for their child. It is this way, because not everyone is a mother, however whether you have bared a child or not, everyone has once before been a frightened child