My Mother – But Wait, There’s More!!

I was actually going to write a post about a totally different aspect of “My Mother”, but then I forgot my anthology and had to look the poem up online, which led me to an interesting discovery: we only read half of the poem in class. Apparently, the poem we read that starts with the line “The dawn departs, the morning is begun,” is only part two of “My Mother”. I’ll quote the full “My Mother” at the bottom of the post for your reading convenience (copied straight from here). I recommend you read the full poem before reading this blog post, but I’ll summarize the “plot” just so we’re all on the same page: the narrator is at his mother’s deathbed when he is called to work. At first he is reluctant, but his mother convinces him it’ll be ok if he leaves, but almost as soon as he gets to work, he is told that his mother is dead. I assumed that Part I was set the night of his mother’s death, whereas Part II was the morning after.

Reading this first part was very interesting. We were talking in class – and in fact I was going to write a post about – the possible metaphorical meaning of “My Mother”, but I think with the first part in mind, there is less of an argument to be made for the mother in part II to be anything but McKay’s actual mother. Regardless of the social or political commentary we might be inclined to attribute to McKay in this poem, I think the first part fills out the second part and gives it more depth.

For example, when I read the line “The bell is sounding” (in Part II) before class, I didn’t think much of it, just some school imagery. But, after reading in Part I, which references the bell as one of the last things the narrator processes before learning of his mother’s death, the bell in Part II has a lot more significance. It makes the poem much more devastating to think of the poor narrator, listening to the same bell that announced his mother’s death to be the sound that greets him in the morning, maybe every morning.

In addition, it’s interesting how much flowery field imagery Part II contains, considering the narrator misses his mother’s death because he much work in the field. I could easily imagine an alternate Part II that is a critique of harsh working requirements with a thesis like “I wanted by at my mother’s side when she died, and you took that one thing away from me”. But McKay is not, at least in my eyes, really critiquing anything in Part II, just coming to terms with death, and the serenity of the second part is really highlighted by the first.

Finally, the main thing the first part does is give the mother character. The second part reveals next to nothing about her, save the fact that she is the narrator’s mother. The first part shows the reader what the mother is like – caring, nice, putting herself before others, and so on. The narrator describes her “smiling sadly in that old sweet way”, which is just a really wholesome description of an old lady. With her selfless request for her son to go work instead of stay with her, she gets some sort of agency and action, rather than being the abstract concept of Part II. For me personally, reading about the mother herself, how clearly she was an amazing, kind, caring person, only makes Part II so much more sad.

Overall, that can go for the rest of the poem, not just the mother part. I think Part I enriched and explained a lot of Part II, and reading them together made me like the poem a lot more because it felt more complete. So the question is, why would our anthology chop this poem in half like this? I honestly have no idea – page limit? Misunderstanding? Accident? Grudge against McKay? None of these make a whole lot of sense, so if you have thoughts, leave a comment!

My Mother

Claude McKay

I

Reg wished me to go with him to the field, 
I paused because I did not want to go; 
But in her quiet way she made me yield 
Reluctantly, for she was breathing low. 
Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap 
And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way, 
She pointed to the nail where hung my cap. 
Her eyes said: I shall last another day. 
But scarcely had we reached the distant place, 
When o'er the hills we heard a faint bell ringing; 
A boy came running up with frightened face; 
We knew the fatal news that he was bringing. 
I heard him listlessly, without a moan, 
Although the only one I loved was gone. 

II

The dawn departs, the morning is begun, 
The trades come whispering from off the seas, 
The fields of corn are golden in the sun, 
The dark-brown tassels fluttering in the breeze; 
The bell is sounding and the children pass, 
Frog-leaping, skipping, shouting, laughing shrill, 
Down the red road, over the pasture-grass, 
Up to the school-house crumbling on the hill. 
The older folk are at their peaceful toil, 
Some pulling up the weeds, some plucking corn, 
And others breaking up the sun-baked soil. 
Float, faintly-scented breeze, at early morn 
Over the earth where mortals sow and reap-- 
Beneath its breast my mother lies asleep.