Grade Me In the poem “Marks” by Linda Pastan, a woman is constantly being judged from several calibers on her role as a day to day mother. Throughout the poem the speaker wants to give up. This poem shows how emotional abuse can affect family relationships. Society faces certain standards of behavior on humanity through the use of unattainable expectations. Pastan uses grades one would get in school to relate how her family evaluates her as a wife and a mother. The speaker’s family is not giving her grades literally for each activity she does, however using this metaphor, she is able to adequately communicate with her audience.
The first and second lines of “Marks” are carefully worded, “My husband gives me an A/ for last night’s supper” (Lines 1 and 2). After reading the first line the poem appears positive, however we begin to see the melancholy tone of this poem. She is faced with the struggle of identity. Burkes says, “Identities are the internal reactions to
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Her son says that she “could improve” (line 8), which is an example of how the family is continually judges the woman based on the roles they perceive that she should perfect. Her son thinks that she is an average mother(line 6), and does not realize the work that goes into being a mother. The poem makes a difference in the opinions between the son and daughter. The son, like the husband, does not appreciate her hard work. He has his mind set that she could always be better, “We can say that people know what it means to be a male and what it means to be a female on the basis of these roles in their own culture” (274). The son knows that he carries a masculine role, “ ...it has been held that abusive men have an extreme and compulsive masculine identification” (273). The speaker receives reasonably good marks from her family. She does not care that her family does not uphold her household duties, she cares that they are giving her a