Scholars International Journal of Linguistics and Literature (SIJLL)
Volume-4 | Issue-05 | 119-129
Review Article
From a Motherhood and Familial Reality to A Societal Reality: Poem “Marks”, A Woman’s Cry from the Heart for Women’s Conditions, Sufferings and Recognition
Beugre Zouankouan Stephane
Published : May 12, 2021
Abstract
This paper aims to study women’s realities and conditions through motherhood realities in Linda Pastan’s poem entitled “Marks”. Indeed thanks to the microcosm of a familial and motherhood reality, the poet Linda Pastan sheds light in general to the macrocosm of familial and motherhood reality in the whole society and further to the macrocosm of women’s realities and conditions in the society. It is like a cry from the heart of a woman which calls for anyone attention about women’s conditions and sufferings in family, in society, and further in the world. In fact, thanks to an ironic style she depicts the daily life of a mother in her own family showing the difficulties she encounters by explaining the household sufferings. This ironic depiction is indeed a kind of metaphor to denounce the ingratitude or ungratefulness on the part of the other members of the family (husband, son and daughter). When transcending the familial context described by Linda Pastan, we observe obviously that this poem is topical about women’s realities and conditions, and also that the problem of women’s conditions and sufferings is universal and a world concern. On the basis of this simple but true reality and in a thorough analysis following sociocriticism, a psychoanalytic criticism, a feminism perspective and stylistics, we will study on the one hand, motherhood realities and women’s conditions and sufferings and on the other hand, we will analyze family or people or society ingratitude toward women and the need for women recognition and emancipation.