Comparisons And Contrasts Of Ethics By Linda Pastan, And 35/10 By Sharon Olds
...ive, reflective, and nostalgic. It is structured as an 18 line poem, each line being of almost equal length. The fact of there being 18 lines may symbolize youth, as the age 18 is the prime of one’s youth. The movement of the poem is very fluid. It’s chronological flow takes the audience from the beginning when the mother notices her daughter, to where she wonder’s why they bloom as mother’s begin to wilt, to finally understanding that it is to replace the mother. The title simply represents the ages, the mother being 35 and the daughter being 10. The diction helps emphasize the difference between the mother and daughter. Words such as gray, silver, dry pitting, and dud represents the mother, while silken, flower, full, and round represent the daughter. There is imagery that helps the audience see the difference as well as the mother in the mirror. For example, in lines 9-10, “she opens like a small pale flower on the tip of a cactus”, or “last chances to bear a child are falling through my body, the duds among them”. This deepens the contrast. Linda Pastan’s poem, “Ethics” is a narrative poem as well. The author, who is the speaker, tells the audience a story of her lesson of ethics. As a young woman, she had an Ethics class, but in the end the lesson the teacher attempted to teach, was only learned by the author’s own experience. The tone is reflective, pensive and appreciative. The poem consists of 25 almost equal lines. The poem moves fluidly as the author herself changes from the beginning to the end. It develops from her memory of the class, to years later in a museum where she remembers her discussion of the class years before. It chronologically tells the audience that she goes from ...