Question

Read the poem below and complete the instruction that follows. “In My Mother’s House” by Gloria G. Murray every wall stood at attention even the air knew when to hold its breath the polished floors looked up defying heel marks the plastic slipcovers crinkled in discomfort in my mother’s house the window shades flapped against the glare of the world the laughter crawled like roaches back into the cracks even the humans sat— cardboard cut-outs around the formica kitchen table and with silver knives sliced and swallowed their words Source: Murray, Gloria G. “In My Mother’s House.” Poet Lore 99.1 (2005). Poetry Foundation. Web. 18 July 2011. Identify the subject and mood of the poem. Discuss how the poet’s use of figurative language, imagery, and symbolism contribute to the reader’s understanding.

Answer 1

 The subject matter is in the poem's title. Their is a resentful mood although it's not plainly stated that the author resented her mother. Her mother's house represents the attitude of her mother; the walls stood at attention, the air knew to hold its breath, the polished floor defied heel marks... The personification is plain in these opening observations and, given the subject matter, it seems plain that these are reflections of the author's mother. It would seem that her mother is very commanding, superior, serious. Two lines I think are very telling: 

"crinkled in discomfort 

in my mother's house" 

It's not been named a childhood home, rather she's in (imagine italics) Her Mother's House.

Answer 2

Answer: The poem's subject is an authorative mother and the fear that arises from her.

Explanation:

• ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gloria G. Murray, an American poet born in Brooklyn, New York, has some books published: In 1999 she produced Walking on Eggshells (1999), while in 2005 she published Pegasus Review and Xandau, two of her anthologies. She also has published in different journals and directed some other performances (Locus valley library and Millpond House). Her poem “In my mother’s house” was included by Ted Kooser in his column “American Life in Poetry”.

1.      IDENTIFY THE SUBJECT AND MOOD OF THE POEM

In “In my mother’s house” we can identify at least two main topics:

• The authority that a mom has in her place: We can see this in the description that the author uses to make the reader imagine how that mother is used to act and think. At this respect, we can find specific allusions to the mother’s authority in some verses:

                    "the air knew when to hold its breath”.

• The fear that arises with violence inside a home: As a direct consequence of the previous point, Murray indicates trough some metaphors how scared someone could be feeling by doing in the mother’s context:

                  "plastic slipcovers crinkled in discomfort in my mother’s house”

As we can see, these two subjects are closely linked; thinking in that we can say that if we must say just one and the principal topic we will say: the fear that someone feels because of her mother.

3.      DISCUSS HOW THE POET’S USE OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM CONTRIBUTE TO THE READER’S UNDERSTANDING

As a part of the poet’s labour, we can find the magic of saying some things with different words as probably we would do in a normal context; right here, in using the language to express ourselves is when a text becomes a literary one. To make it possible, poets use figurative language, imagery and symbolism to say, at the same time, something like two stories simultaneously; by one side we can find a short story mostly composed by a house’s description, but if we put special attention we would understand the hidden story: the one that tells us how (the mother) is and how this affects to its context.

• FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Trough this kind of language the author of a poem can say different things; the most of the time we only can be able to understand what he or she was meant to say if we read it contextually.

• IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM: It is really important to literature productions to have symbols and little cues in order to help the reader to “follow the way” which means helping him or her to understand what the author wanted to say. Thanks to symbolism the reader could attribute different meanings to just one word or sentence, stimulating its imagery to achieve it.

• HOW THEY CONTRIBUTE TO READER’S UNDERSTANDING: Of course both figurative language and symbolism help the reader to understand what the author is saying because they contain the double meaning of the production and when it is analyzed the imagery works and the ideas show up.