The Analysis of "The Courage That My Mother Had" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1949)

Poem Text

The Courage That My Mother Had
by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1949)
 
The Courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still;
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more;
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she'd left to me
The thing she took into the grave!--
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.


Theme and Style Analysis

Theme: Memory

 "The Courage That My Mother Had" is Millay's elegy to her mother. It is a somber commemoration. Much of the poem's tension arises from two contrasting elements: the vividness with which the poet remembers her mother, and an awareness of her death that is present from the beginning of the poem until its end. The mother is described in the past tense, implying that she is now dead; however, some of the details suggest she is still alive--at least for the poet. for example, her courage "went with her," but it "is with her still." The juxtaposition of real death and imagined life produces a poignant sense of loss which grows over the course of the poem's three stanzas. The sense of loss is all the greater because the death of the mother is only hinted at in the first two stanzas. She is "granite in a granite hill"; she "left behind" a brooch. It is not until the final stanza, when the poet mentions "the thing she took into the grave," that death is confronted directly.

In the first two stanzas, the poet recalls her mother in a remarkably economical portrait. In two lines the poet suggest the complexity of her mother's character, which comprised both "rock from New England quarried" and "the golden brooch" she wore. The first metaphor describes the mother' courage. This is her most remarkable characteristics, emphasized by being mentioned both in the poem's first line and in its concluding thought. The metaphor also associates the mother with a specific location and culture, evoking the steadfast, proverbial strength New Englanders are reputed to posses. In the second descriptive line, the brooch reveals a very different aspect of the mother's character, a soft, feminine side. One can almost see an old photograph of the mother in her best dress.

The brooch recalls both the living mother and the fact of her death; it was the living mother who wore the piece, but the poet would not have it if her mother had not passed away. The paradox is underlined in the last lines of the second stanza. "I have no thing I treasure more," she writes, "yet, it is something I could spare." She values the brooch because it is a link to her mother, but she would gladly do without the jewelry to have her mother back with her.

Style

"The Courage That My Mother Had" consists of three quatrains, or four-line stanzas. Within each quatrain, the final words of the first and third lines rhyme, as do the final words of the second and fourth lines.

Although the meter of the poem varies in places, each line tends to be arranged in iambic tetrameter. "Iambic" refers to segments in a poem called iambs, units of two syllables where the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. "Tetrameter" indicates that there are four such segments, or feet, to each line--"tetra" meaning "four."

The following line illustrates the poem's iambic tetrameter construction:

     The gold / en brooch / my moth / er wore.

The poem's rhythm lends "The Courage That My Mother Had" a song-like quality when it is read aloud. When you are reading the poem, you will also notice that each stanza contains a complete thought. The stanzas are linked together thematically, but each addresses a slightly different sentiment.