Final- African American Literature PDF

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Essay about the poem "Teh mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks....

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Luisanny Marinez    Professor Terry Cole  ENG 225-8320  August 1st, 2019      Gwendolyn Brooks, mother of unborn children Abortion has been, and it will always be a complex topic to talk about. Despite abortion becoming recently legal in some places, many others are still discussing whether it should be legal. In the 1900’s in the United States, abortion was still illegal, and many women, such as black women were getting unwanted pregnancies and trying to abort. Maybe because they could not afford raising a child after being abandoned by their men or they were not prepare for a child. As an example of this we have the story of one black woman and her experience with abortion. In the poem “The mother”, by Gwendolyn Brooks, she tells us about a woman who have had several abortions, presumably her. She portraits how it felt for her and how the consequences of abortion affected her emotionally. She shows a conflicted view and understanding of her past decisions and her own reasoning about it. I understand that a baby is to be considered as a human being since the moment of conception and has the natural right to live. Therefore, abortion is murder. I also think that this is the reason why it affects the women emotionally in a long term, like Gwendolyn Brooks. An abortion must be a hard decision to make and she did it several times. I believe that she realized on this poem about the severity of her own decisions. Nevertheless, as a non-perfect being myself, I sympathize with her.

First, life is a natural right. A natural right is one that cannot be taken from you, by anyone. Since a baby is a third party, he has his own DNA, his own body, etc., an abortion is an attempt against that right. We see how Gwendolyn Brooks portraits that by saying: “I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized Your luck And your lives from your unfinished reach, If I stole your births and your names, Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths, If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate. “ Even though she tries to justify her decisions, she understands that she stole their lives, taking that right of those children away. Their right to become adults with names and the right to have their own life experiences. She deeply understands that their lives did not belong to her and that she committed a crime.

Second, abortion is killing. The intentional termination of a human life in any of its stages should be considered murder. A fetus is just a human being in a different stage of development as an adult human being, therefore his or her life still matters the same. In the poem

it is shown how Gwendolyn realizes that after her abortions. She states: “I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children” Implying that abortion is killing, and that that idea is haunting her. Many women would not even think about abortion as murder, many of them think it is just “a bunch of cells”. But, if we really think about it, a embryo or fetus is a human being just going through a stage of life. The pregnancy as a whole is a process which is part of every human being’s experience. It is not a conversion from “a bunch of cells” to the condition of human being. It is instead a human being going through different stages. Therefore, having an abortion just for the sake of it, and must be consider as murder. But many people don’t realize it until it is done or until many years past their adulthood. She states: “You were born, you had body, you died.” That is when people build awareness of the fact that when someone get an abortion, someone else, a third party, is dying. That is when many of them regret. Gwendolyn recognizes also that the baby was not part of her body, yet he had a body of his own. Nevertheless, with the stream media and the brainwashing that we are living today, people grow up believing it is okay to kill an innocent human being. Third, abortion causes emotional long-term harm on the mother. Many women do not even understand the symptoms after having an abortion as well as many are not aware of postpartum depression. But this is not what many women like to talk about. Nevertheless, experiencing depression after having abortions is a real issue and it should be acknowledged. It can be clearly seen this when Brooks states: “Abortions will not let you forget”. This means that

no matter how much time goes by, a woman who ever had an abortion will not forget it as she forgets something trivial. She then follows with: “You remember the child that you got that you did not get”, which is a way of saying that she still thinks of the possibilities of being a mother and seeing those children that were supposed to be born. But she just didn't let them live. It is noticeable how she expresses how the idea of being a mother haunts her and how she is contemplating the possibilities of her motherhood if she had let those children be born. She continues to acknowledge many things that women who abort miss out: “You will never neglect or beat Them, or silence or buy with a sweet. You will never wind up the sucking-thumb Or scuttle off ghosts that come. You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh, Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.” As she explains not letting those children be born prevented her to ever live these typical experiences that a mother lives with her child. Hence, abortions create negative repercussions in the mother. It must be painful for a woman to face the fact that they have killed their own child. Even worse, several children, like Gwendolyn. Several children were dead because of the decisions she made. In conclusion, thanks to this poem many people realize that many women can end up in a situation where they might consider abortion as an option. Nevertheless, if this was a right thing

to do, we would no see anyone feeling regret about it. Like Gwendolyn. This poem by gives the opportunity for people to understand what many women face after taking this kind of decisions. She makes her point clear about what abortion really is and that it would haunt it forever. Despite the fact that I am a pro-life, I sympathize with her because at the end I see how she regrets doing what she did. Behind the little irony on the poem, I can see her sorrow. After analyzing it deeply, it is certain that it resonates with many women today that are discussing the topic or are thinking about getting an abortion. I hope people read this poem and raise awareness about the repercussions of killing your own child....