Question

In at least one hundred words, tell why Saffarzadeh feels that she must “make confession” in “Birthplace.” How is the tone in this excerpt different from the beginning of the poem?

Answer 1

The tone at the beginning of Birthplace is shameful and disappointed. It reflects the way her mother felt when she gave birth to her and saw that she had a girl and not a boy. This point in the poem, however, radiates strength and reflects the narrator's want to fight against injustice. The line "I’ll peel from the wall that ashamed look of my mother" says that she is no longer ashamed of herself for being born a certain way. She's saying that when she returns to her birthplace, she won't see it as the place where her mother's greatest disappointment was born. It is now a place where a strong woman was born.