Essay Example: The Courage That My Mother Had Poem Analysis

When people lose loved ones they often go for their material possessions, Those who truly admire one’s character do not treasure their belongings but rather the energy and personality that person carried within them. In the poem “The courage My Mother Had” Edna St. Vincent Millay uses literary elements of simile, shift, and diction to portray a character who is longing for the courage that her late mother had and uses figurative language to express how the speaker cares for her mother's possessions but not as much as the person her mother was. 

Things we desire most are the hardest to attain. In the poem, The Courage My Mother Had the speaker uses diction to emphasize how she appreciated her mother who had passed away. Admiring her courage and her character. “I have no thing I treasure more yet, it is something I could spare.” She uses the word “treasure” to exaggerate how much these items her mother left behind mean to her but uses the word “spare” to depict how she has a connected sentiment to her inherited items but does not care for them as much as her mother’s spirit and yearns for her presence. “Oh if she had left behind that thing she took into the grave!” Additionally, the speaker uses this line as a plea of desperation. She wants to feel closer to her mother but can’t through material items. She needs the personality and the attributes that made her mom, her mom. She needs a way to be like her and that's through her most prominent trait, courage. 

“That courage is like a rock” The speaker describes her mother's courage as something strong and unbreakable. I'd like to imagine the rock as a diamond, something beautiful, strong, and unbreakable like the speaker's mother. She uses a simile to let us create a vivid image of what her mother was like. Along with similes this line and line twelve depict a shift. “That courage is like a rock, which she has no more need of and I have” This shift goes from admiration to wanting something so badly that throughout the poem you're pleading for that one thing you desire most. I interpret this as the speaker wishing that her mother would have taken her courage and sealed it in a jar to pass on for her to inherit. She is desperate for that one trait that made her mother so admirable. She's so passionate about the way her mother was throughout her life with her most memorable trait of courage, that you can sense the longing and desire to be like her mother through the speaker's words. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay illustrates through shift, simile, and diction that appreciating dead loved ones for their livelihood and the love they brought into the world is the best way to honor them. The speaker of “The Courage my Mother Had” illustrated how material possessions are nice to have, but material possessions will never replace the person who previously owned them. The only way to feel closer to loved ones is to appreciate and admire their character, spirit and attributes that made them the person they were.