ipl-logo

Summary Of The Poem 'Marks' My Linda Pastan

871 Words4 Pages

In the short poem “Marks” my Linda Pastan, you are given an insight on the life of a wife who is also a mother of two. The setting of the story takes place in a standard family home, but instead of feeling like you were home it felt more like school. This poem is an extended metaphor; the author uses grades a student would normally get in school to compare to how her family measures to being a mother as well as a wife. Now through dialogue you can tell that she is not actually receiving grades for the required chores she has to do but it helps communicate the message to the audience. Due to the fact that it’s easy for just about any one reading this to relate to a grading system cause we all have received an amount of schooling before. The …show more content…

The daughters statement was clearly just her opinion on her mother passing not with any back up evidence which would of gave the mother a more solid thought on just her passing. So the speaker doesn’t seem so enthusiastic about the way her family judges her value, her worth, or her performance. The mother seems in distress which is also just like a student being graded in school and they don’t meet the standards that are set for them by others. The irony here is that rather than parents mark their children, it is the children and father who is marking her, which is the commonly thought to be the most important figure in the household and family. The speaker leads us to believe that there is going to be some action to take place as she continues the metaphor by stating “dropping out” so will she leave? Maybe voice her unhappiness and feelings of stress? Could this be a suicide note? But regardless of those it is made clear that instead of belittling those we love, we need to appreciate the good loved ones and friends do for us or it could lead to them no longer wanting anything to do with

Show More
Related
290 Words | 2 Pages

Response to “I Just Wanna Be Average" by Mike Rose Had Rose and her mother been educated enough, they could have a voice to raise concerns about Rose’s marks. The author seems to suggest that the teachers were responsible for his underperformance. The author feels that parental and teacher responsibility on his part could have helped understanding what discipline is before going to college. However, it is also possible that he did not try hard enough to be disciplined. Nonetheless, Rose is right that environment plays a bigger role in what an individual eventually becomes in adult life (Munns et all, 2013).

Read More
499 Words | 2 Pages

The family accepts them and invites her to the funeral. When she attends, she is embarrassed by her own weeping. She is homesick, and has been making attempts to belong for so long, and this reminds her of what she left behind. The funeral ended at the crematorium, a symbolic act of immolation. It’s possible that her unease at this part of the ceremony is related to the dislike which Westerners have about facing mortality, but it could also be that the reminder of the limitation of time made her shallow attempts at connecting with others seem ludicrous.

Read More
831 Words | 4 Pages

After talking to all of her relatives, the speaker’s grandmother made the biggest impact her, settling her opinion about her mother’s heritage. The speaker’s hatred

Read More
415 Words | 2 Pages

The role of parents in a child’s life is an irreplaceable one. Children are shaped by what they see their parents do and how they see them act. Children can choose to pattern themselves after what they see their parents do or they can choose to avoid being like their parents. In the story ‘Ashes’ by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Recent research shows, fathers affect the lives of their young adult daughters in intriguing and occasionally surprising ways. Ashes’ father can be mostly described as a good parent.

Read More
676 Words | 3 Pages

She has a daughter. She calls herself worn-out, balding, arthritic mother. She has low self-esteem. “Maureen allowed this thought in self-mockery, to make herself feel young, but it did not have this effect”(1). Maureen is heartbroken.

Read More
914 Words | 4 Pages

By doing so she is coming across as an affectionate and understanding parent, who wants their child to recognize their full potential. In another example she states, “It will be expected of you my son, that, as you are favored with superior advantages under the instructive eye of a tender parent, you improvement should bear some proportion to your advantages” (21-24). She is reminding

Read More
797 Words | 4 Pages

But, as she grew older, she realized that they weren’t people that should be admired. Her father was never home, drunk, and wasting their money gambling, while her mother was either crying on the sofa or trying to fulfill her life long dream of becoming

Read More
687 Words | 3 Pages

She was disappointed and angry at the fact that Connie didn’t help her out at church. This shows that the lack of a close family relationship will cause problems between family members. When you respect and value others, they will feel fortunate to have as their

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

He begins the article stating that his mother ‘is not surprised that her children are well-off.” This may possibly be hinting at the fact that he and his siblings are doing well prosperity-wise likely due to hard work. He immediately sets the tone for the passage with this statement that draws back to the passage’s theme of the American dream of material success. He then describes an experience in which his mother “stands waving toward no one in particular.” It can be inferred that the particular event being described is the departure of his siblings - possibly back to work.

Read More
721 Words | 3 Pages

This implication has undoubtedly destroyed the protagonist’s self-confidence to the point that she acknowledged herself as an “it”—an object that is not valued—as she stated the words, “it saddened [my mother] to have given birth to an item

Read More
586 Words | 3 Pages

Each daughter thinks she is not even comparable to her mother, but they soon realize that that is not the case. The daughters also feel that they can never make their mothers proud of them because they are always criticizing everything they do. Waverly Jong told her a friend, “‘You don’t know my mother, she never thinks anybody is good enough for anything. ’”(Tan 167). Waverly Jong stopped playing piano because she was tired of her mom showing her off when she did well, but cutting her down when she was perfect enough.

Read More
1070 Words | 5 Pages

Imagine blowing up a balloon, with every exhale of breath the balloon gets bigger. Similar to a balloon, with every year that passes grades inflate. In “Grade Inflation Gone Wild” by Stuart Rojstaczer, he discusses how the grading system has changed over the years. Rojstaczer’s overall purpose is to increase awareness of grade inflation and persuade his audience to take action. He argues that “changes in grading have had a profound influence on college life and learning” (2).

Read More
1351 Words | 6 Pages

In a family there are many different roles; there's the role of the mother, the father, the child, the grandparents, then there’s the brothers and sisters. Every single one of those roles has different responsibilities. The father, according to most of society, is supposed to be the breadwinner for the family. However, nowadays the mother is actually quite capable of being the breadwinner just as much of as the father. As they work to show their children what it is to be an adult they are teaching them as well on how to be an active member of society.

Read More
1386 Words | 6 Pages

In his poem, Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt, Melvin Dixon presents the protagonist Aunt Ida experiencing an internal as well an external dialogue with her family members. Initially, the poem starts off the mother of Junie (the departed) handing all the clothes to Aunt Ida. Automatically, the presence of disconsolate, nostalgic, and agonizing are the feelings that build up the atmosphere of the poem. However, as the poem continues the purpose to why Aunt Ida was handed down the clothes of Junie is because from the clothes of the decease she will make a quilt. As she starts to quilt the atmosphere of the poem transition to a more unifying and commemorations feelings towards the families that have had a family member die from AIDS and to Junie too.

Read More
1101 Words | 5 Pages

The reality of the situation was that she had no control over her father’s death. There was nothing or no way that she could have prevented the events that took place. Although she was extremely angry with the situation at hand she learned that she had other things to be grateful for. She wanted people to know that even though something or someone has passed away you can’t stay stuck in the state of depression forever. You have to step back and look at your life because the reality is, life still moves on.

Read More

More about Summary Of The Poem 'Marks' My Linda Pastan

Related Topics

Open Document