Abortion In The Mother, By Gwendolyn Brooks

Whether you’re a mother or not, you probably have an opinion about abortion. Some think it’s a fundamental human right while others believe that it’s a crime. Whatever side you fall on, you can’t deny that abortion’s a controversial issue. In “The Mother,” Brooks imagines the thoughts, feelings, and dreams that the aborted child was not able to feel. Terminating a fetus is a huge decision, and the author lets us in on the emotional difficulties that follow having an abortion. Brooks’ poem offers a non-judgmental portrait of a woman who has had an abortion. Every abortion involves a woman with thoughts, emotions and love and “The Mother” gives this woman a chance to speak up. The speaker in Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “the mother” is a mother because of the way she displays her connection with her child, through the use of metaphors, diction, and imagery. …show more content…
These metaphors are a way for her to convey the strength and depth of her feelings about her non-existent children. These feelings run deep and can be compared to hunger; because the way she longs to have known her children is similar to how someone hungers for food. This can be supported by the first two lines of the poem that state, “Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get,” Remembering the children is as physical as hungering for the food. In these lines the speaker is saying that she remembers and misses the children that she could have had in her