Parent-Child Relationships in the Poems Refugee Mother and...

In Refugee Mother and Child, the nature of relationship portrayed between a mother and child is very tender and personal. The title of this poem directly suggests a connection between a mother and child. The very first line elaborates on this idea, as seen in the metaphor; â€Å"No Madonna and child could touch, that picture of a mothers tenderness...† Here the sustained sacred love between the mother and child surpasses the iconography of Mother Mary and Jesus. This signifies that the refugee mother and child shared a distinctive kind of closeness and loving relationship, experienced by no other parent and child. Achebe creates an image of sadness and grief in the line, â€Å"For a son she would soon have to forget†. This provokes a sense of†¦show more content†¦may have influenced this poem (he was a journalist). Starvation and diseases was widespread and children died with unconcerned regularity. The poet presents a case in this poem where a mother did take care and continue to treat her child who was on the brink of death, as if he would live. The heavily autobiographical poem, Poem at Thirty-Nine by Alice Walker shows a strong bonding between a daughter and her deceased father. The poem illustrates how paternal love is appreciated by the persona. The first line reveals to us that the persona was extremely close to her father as she says â€Å"How I miss my father†. This shows how the daughter longed to spend time with her father and there is a deep sense of regret. The sentence is repeated again in the fourth stanza, this time with an exclamation mark at the end. Walker shows the daughter’s light-heartedness towards her father in this phrase. The two phrases are the only lines that appear as full sentences in the entire poem. This could be because the persona wants to dwell for a while in the memory of her father. Throughout the second and third stanzas, Walker shows the personas father teaching his daughter the correct procedures; â€Å"He taught me how. This is the