Effects Flashcards
Title
Suggests both the physical remnants of a life—objects that once held meaning—and the lasting emotional impact of a loved one’s absence. The mother’s “effects” are reduced to a small bag, symbolizing how identity and personal history are stripped away in death. Also highlights the emotional “effects” of her passing on the speaker, who is left grappling with regret and unspoken connections
Structure
The lack of strict rhyme or meter creates a sense of disarray, like the broken pieces of a life once whole. The winding, often interrupted sentences reflect the disjointed nature of memory and the confusion that comes with grief
Left her little bag of effects
Symbolizes the material remnants of a person’s life, often what is left behind after someone passes. This is the reduction of a human life to objects. Shows how death shifts a person from someone deeply loved to something reduced to “effects”
With her name smudged in black ink
The imagery of a name being “smudged” conveys both impermanence and dehumanization, suggesting that the mother is being reduced to something less than herself - her identity is becoming blurred or erased. The mother is no longer an individual with a rich, personal history, but has been reduced to a name on a piece of paper
Hand that was always scarred
Suggests that the mother’s experiences have shaped her in ways that are permanent—both on her body and in her psyche. Even though these scars are signs of suffering, they also symbolize the love and care she has given, reinforcing the theme that she is defined by what she has done for others rather than by what has been done to her.
Please don’t leave and therefore I left
The speaker’s leaving is a paradox—even though the mother is asking them to stay, the very act of her asking might be what drives the speaker to leave. Poet’s psychological detachment from his mother throughout her illness eventually culminates in physical detachment at the moment of her death
