The definition of self-sacrifice in the English dictionary is defined in the actions of giving up what you want so that other people can have what they want. These actions of self-sacrifice are displayed throughout Gwen Harwood and Christina Rossetti’s poems, In the Park and Remember respectively. Gwen’s In the Park explores the awareness of being selfless once she leaves gives those of whom she loved a license to be happy, whereas Remember illustrates the challenges of motherhood filled with self-sacrifice to your children resulting in loss of identity fully.
In the first stanza of In the Park, Gwen creates an image of a woman who is contempt with her life of being only a mother of three children as “she sits in the park; her clothes out of date” whereas Remember is a plea from the narrator for those left behind to remember her when she leaves to “the silent land”. Where the mother has accepted her fate with over whelming feelings of being directionless and disconnected from the world with her existence paralleling with the “aimless patterns in the dirt” differs from the character in Remember with her determination as she gives demanding instructions of “remember me” to those she once loved.
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Lost and lonely within herself the mothers perspective is mirrored back to her through an unexpected meeting of an ex love as she “feign indifference to a casual nod”, as he sees her in her dejected state. Remember expresses a genuine request of happiness to continue in the lives of those left behind in contrast to In the Park where the mother is insincere in her words to mask the truth to