Sunday, May 19, 2013

What could be a well-structured thesis for "The Mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks?

"The Mother" is a complex poem in which the narrator mourns the loss of the children whom she has aborted. A potential thesis statement might deal with the way she grapples with her loss. What are the different emotions she shows? She addresses her unborn children as "sweets" and writes of the way she has robbed them of their entire life span—from their "baby tears" to their graves. However, even in committing this act, she says, "Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate." What is this paradox? How can it be true that she was both deliberate and not deliberate? This might be the beginning of a thesis statement. She also goes on to grapple with the complexity of her children's deaths, as they "were never made." What are the contradictions and questions she is dealing with? If you think about some of these questions, you can produce an arguable thesis statement that works as the springboard for your paper.

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