Poetry Analysis Paper

Alessandra Z. Narciso

Dr. Charlie S. Veric

Literature 14

December 15, 2014

A Mother’s Love

        It is often said that a mother’s love is unconditional. Whether she peppers you with hugs and kisses everyday or leaves you by yourself for days on end, a mother’s love is said to be the only form of love that doesn’t wither or fade through time, no matter the obstacles or the foes that challenge it. A mother’s love will sustain and overlook her child’s mistakes, just as it will overlook her own life.

        Patricia Fargnoli depicts this sort of love in Breaking Silence – For My Son. In the poem, the persona is telling her son the story of the night her was conceived, describing to her son the type of relationship she had with his father. She talked about it in a manner that gives the reader an impression that the relationship was doomed to fail from the onset, with the uncomfortable sex and the poorly thought-out acceptance of a proposal. The eventual demise of the marriage that followed was unavoidable. The mother tells her son that although that was not the life she would have chosen for herself, she still loved him.

        The message of the poem, in a way highlights this love that the mother has for her son. “This is not to say I loved you any less – only that I was young and didn’t know yet we can choose our lives.” This line, more than any other in the poem, portrays the mother’s disdain for the life she has led, particularly her marriage. Yet she says that despite everything, she still loves her son – unconditionally. I find this line particularly striking because it can be read in a way such that had the mother been given a chance to choose her life, she would have chosen a different husband, maybe a different city to live in, a different job, but not a different child. The line about unconditional love seems quite misplaced in a poem about a bad relationship yet makes complete sense because it is a mother referring to her child. Despite all the hardships this mother has lived through, most especially her struggling marriage, she cherishes her son. He may be the best thing that has ever happened to her, the one thing she would still choose if she could do her life over again.

        The tone of poem, with all its brute details of sex and the harsh reality of the story behind the marriage sounds cold and unlike the way a loving mother should speak to her son. However, when taken into context, the delivery of the poem seems to evoke comfort and reassurance as if the motive of the mother is to try to explain to her son why his parents divorced and convince him that none of it was his fault. It is as if the mother is bearing the entire truth, complete with all her shame, weaknesses and regrets, to protect her son from guilt.