Poem ‘My Mother at Sixty Six’ By Kamala Das Summery, Analysis and Poetic Devices

 

Poem ‘My Mother at Sixty Six’

By Kamala Das

 

             Poem      

My Mother at Sixty-Six

 

My Mother at Sixty-Six:

Driving from my parent’s

home to Cochin last Friday

morning, I saw my mother,

beside me,

doze, open mouthed, her face

ashen like that

of a corpse and realized with pain

that she was as old as she

looked but soon

put that thought away, and

looked out at Young

Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling

out of their homes, but after the airport’s

security check, standing a few yards

away, I looked again at her, wan, pale

as a late winter’s moon and felt that old

familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,

but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,

all I did was smile and smile and

smile……                                           https://www.videosprofitnetwork.com/watch.xml?key=82916a29dd8c7ab1c66ce8428010fe69

 

 

About the Poet

The poet, Kamala Das also wrote by her pen-name of ‘Madhavikutty’. She was born in Kerala and is one of India’s first poets. Her subject – matter is basically related to her personality- beautiful, sensitive, bold and tormented. External factors do not reflect in her writings, her writings bring out her true inner feelings.
Her favorite poem is ‘composition’.

In the poem ‘My mother at sixty six’, she talks about her mother. This poem is based on mother-daughter relation and the poet shares her feelings for her mother.

 

My Mother at Sixty Six Summary

This is a touching poem written by Indian poet Kamla Das who wrote under the pen name of ‘Madhavikutty’. In this poem, she describes her feeling of love and attachment towards her ageing mother.

Once the poet went to visit her mother. She was on her way back to the the airport to return to Cochin. She looked at her mother who was seated beside her in the car. Her mother had dozed off to sleep and her ageing face – was smoky in colour like ash. Her mouth was open and she resembled a dead body. The poet realized that her mother was old. She felt pain and sympathy for her. Her mother needed love, affection and care.

In order to come out of the gloom, the poet shifted her glance and looked out of the car’s window. There she saw young trees pass by. Little children were running out of their houses into the playgrounds. These things were contrary to the ageing face of her mother. They symbolised energy, life and happiness.

 As they reached the airport and the poet was about to leave for the aeroplane, she glanced at her mother one more time. Her mother appeared weak and pale just like the moon in the winter season which seems to have lost all its strength. The poet felt the pain and fear of losing her mother. She was reminded of her childhood when she used to fear losing her mother. As a child she could not bear to be separated from her mother even for a few moments. Now the loss would be permanent as her mother was about to die and she would lose her forever.

The poet did not express her feelings. She smiled and said “see you soon, Amma” because she wanted that her mother should live and they could meet again.

 

 Explanation

Firstly, when the poet is on her way to the cochin airport with her old mother sitting beside her, she looks at her closely and presents before us her image.

She compares her with a corpse. (similie is a figure of speech to show comparison between her mother’s face and a corpse.)  As she looks at her mother’s pale and pallid face, she is struck with the horror and pain of losing her. The mother with the dozing face and open mouth is compared to a corpse. Here, the poet shows the typical love and affection which is present in a mother-daughter relation.

The poet is pained and shifts her attention outside the car in order to drive out the negative feelings. She changes her sad mood .The scene outside the window is of growing life and energy. The rapidly sprinting trees alongside the merrily playing children symbolize life, youth and vitality. The poet here is reminded of her own childhood when her mother had been young whereas now she is encircled with the fear of losing her and that has made her insecure.

She is at the airport to take a flight. It indicates departure and separation which creates melancholy. As she bids goodbye to her mother, the image of the old, wan, worn out mother in the twilight of years strikes her again. Here again a similie is used to compare her mother with a late winter’s moon whose light is obstacle by fog and mist As she looks old now, her personality is affected by it.

The poet is feeling the pain of separation, leaving her mother and going. Also, her childhood fear of losing her mother which she feels that earlier was temporary but now, could be forever as she could die of old age, is haunting her. She is so pained that it is natural for her to cry but keeping a brave front she hides her tears and smiles.

She bids farewell to her mother and keeping her hope of seeing her again alive, says “see you soon, Amma”. She hides her sorrow as she does not want to create a painful environment for her mother and conveys her that as she is enjoying her life similarly her mother should also be happy and enjoy her life.

(The poem revolves around the theme of advancing age and the fear that adheres to its loss and separation. It is a sentimental account of the mother’s approaching end through the eyes of the daughter. The seemingly short poem touches upon the theme of the filial bond between the mother and daughter smeared in the backdrop of nostalgia and fear. Nostalgia of the past (the time spent with the mother) and fear of the future without her.)

It is a short poem, without a full stop, the poem is like a long sentence, over flowing thought process. The poet uses the device of comparison and contrast, simile and repetition.

 

Critical Analysis

 

Kamala Das’s poetry is most often identified as confessional poetry. “My Mother at Sixty Six” can also be identified as such. She is as open and uninhibited in this poem as she is in her other famous confessional poems such as “An introduction”. She describes her mother’s aging face and her reaction to it without the slightest bit of hesitation. She compares her mother’s face to that of a corpse. This is a rather morbid image, but that shouldn’t surprise us. As we have said before, Kamala Das is not afraid to put off her readers a little if it serves the overall purpose of making her poem as honest as possible. And so makes this stark comparison to show how the process of aging immediately brings up the fear of losing her mother in her mind.She also describes how that fear disturbs her so much that she is forced to turn her attention away. This turning away doesn’t symbolize a turning away from her responsibility towards her mother, but only a turning away from her own pain-filled emotions. Even though her mother is no longer a young woman, she is still beautiful. That is why the second time around, she compares her mother’s face with that of the moon on a winter night. This image is not morbid, but pleasant. However, both images are used to signal the end of something. The corpse more directly addresses the issue of human life coming to an end. But the fact that the poet has specified that the moon which her mother’s face resembles is the moon seen in winter shows that winter is also used here to signal the end of a year –one more year that a man has lived, and one that is drawing him closer to the end of his life as well. Thus, even though the two images seem to be dissimilar, they symbolize the same thing. They together symbolize the brevity of human life and the certainty of death. This is the poet’s biggest fear –that her mother will die, and she will not have the power to stop it from happening. As a child, it is natural that one should feel powerless. However, as an adult, as a strong and independent woman, as an eminent poet, Kamala Das is by no means powerless. But where death is concerned, there is nothing she can do. She fears that the loss of her mother can never be replaced in any way. However, she is determined not to dishearten her mother. So she smiles and says goodbye. But one can literally hear her heart breaking. It is this covering up of her pain that makes the poem beautiful and relatable.

 

 

 

Poetic Devices

 

Rhyme scheme: The poet does not use any identifiable rhyme scheme in this poem. It’s a blank verse. Rhetorical/Poetic devices:

 

 

Simile

 

This rhetorical device is used when an overt comparison is made between two different things. In this poem, the poet uses the device of simile on two instances. When she compares her mother’s face with that of a corpse and also uses the word “like” while making that comparison. She again compares her mother with the moon in wintertime and also uses the word “as” while making this comparison.

 

Personification

This rhetorical device is used to bestow human qualities on something that is not human. In this poem, the poet uses the device of personification with respect to trees. She imagines the trees to be figures that are running alongside her car

 

.Apostrophe

This rhetorical device is used when a poet addresses his or her poem to an absent audience. In this poem, the poet uses the device of apostrophe, when she speaks directly to her mother, addressing her as “Amma”, even though we never see the mother replying to the poet.

 

METAPHOR

 This rhetorical device is used when a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. In this poem, the poet uses the device of metaphor in line when she speaks ‘Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling out of their homes’ to show the contrary image of her mother’s age and approaching end.

 

REPETITION

 This rhetorical device is used when a word or phrase is repeated. In this poem, the poet uses the device of repetition in last line ‘all I did was smile and smile and smile......’ when she had to subdue her feelings and tried not to show her emotion to her mother. She says she believes that she will meet her mother again.

 

Central Idea of the Poem

On her way to the airport from her parents’ house as she is leaving for Cochin, the poet is driving in her car with her mother beside her. When she chances upon her mother sleeping, she notices how old her mother has grown for the first time. She is disturbed and turns her eyes away to focus on young trees and younger children instead. Again after the security check at the airport, she notices her mother’s aging face. This fills her with the fear she had experienced since childhood –that of her mother dying. But she does not let that fear show on her face. She smiles and bids her mother goodbye, promising to see her soon.

 

Themes of the Poem

Comparisons: The poet compares her mother’s pale face with two things –the white face of a corpse, and the moon on a winter night. The first comparison is made chiefly on the basis of the similarity of hue between the two objects. When a person dies, blood stops being pumped out of the heart and circulating through the brains. In the absence of the flow of blood, the body loses its healthy glow and takes on an unnatural white pallor. When her mother is sleeping, the poet’s mother also has reduced heart function. As a result the life-giving flow of blood is also reduced and her skin appears paler than usual. After their arrival at the airport, he mother has woken up, but the creases on her skin that have appeared due to aging are still there. These creases look like the craterson the moon’s surface that disrupt its otherwise immaculate appearance. Hence they take away some amount of the moon’s beauty, but certainly not all of it. Similarly, age does show on her mother’s face, but it cannot really mar her beauty.Contrasts:When the poet notices how old her mother has grown, she tries to focus her attention on other things. She ends up noticing only those things that are not old. She notices the trees that her car is going past and they appear to be moving at an equally fast paceby themselves. This leads the

poet to feel that the trees must be very young to be filled with such invigorating energy. She also notices children pouring out of their houses excitedly. It is not possible that on an average day there are no adults out on the street. However, the poet’s attention does not fall on adults, but only on children, who are just starting out on their journey of life. Both these images serve as a contrast to her mother who is almost at the end of that journey. Another instance of the poet using a contrast to express herself clearly comes at the very end of the poem. The sorrow in her heart is in contrast with the smile she has bravely put on her face as she says goodbye to her mother.

 

Tone of the Poem

The tone of this poem is predominantly pensive and sorrowful. The poet suddenly notices that her mother looks as old as she is. This could have surprised her since she only sees her mother during holidays and not on a daily basis. However, it does not surprise her because she has always been aware of the certainty of her mother’s death. As she does when she turns away from her mother to look at the tress and the children, she has simply chosen not to think about losing her mother anytime soon. Yet that fear has always plagued her and it plagues her still. This saddens her and one can see her silent tears even when she has forced herself to smile.