preview

An Analysis Of 'My Mother's Face' By Brenda Serotte

Decent Essays

The poem “My Mother’s Face” by Brenda Serotte depicts the difficulty of a mother and daughter with a close bond trying to cope with a difficult situation of becoming an adult. “My Mother’s face” talks about the women’s state of affairs, the words used in the poem indicate that the mother is going through a difficult situation and the speaker can feel it through her close observation and on her own accord. The poem basically highlights the human aging process and the difficulty for a mother to realize the fact that her beloved daughter doesn’t need her anymore. The daughter sees the mother’s reflection and passes it for her own, feeling empathetic to the sorrow being shown on her mother's face. The daughter now realizes that with time, …show more content…

Generally, most people care and love their mothers, this effect makes the reader put themselves in the shoes of the speaker, and creates an empathy for the speaker and her mother that causes the reader to pay closer attention to the imagery. Although, the poet could have also chosen the title “My Mother's Face” to emphasize paying close attention to the face of the speakers mother.The speaker speaks to us in a first-person view point, where she uses her tone to imply to us that she is empathetic to the sorrow her mother is feeling. She wants the audience to relate with her emotion and translate it into sympathy as well. We tend to do this a lot by ourselves by also using imagery to describe a scene. The speaker is dressing for work but discovers that her mother may be undergoing distress after looking at her face. The initial glance makes the speaker concentrate more and becomes filled with empathy. After describing the scene of her mother, she begins to draw the picture of the empathy she feels for her mother, (17-20) “which heaved so forlorn / so weighted with loss / that had I not been standing silent / I would have surely thought it was me.” By drawing a comparison between herself and her mother this shows us the empathy that’s been built by the persona. The use of the first person in this poem makes the reader feel as if all this was happening to him/her. It gives

Get Access