When we talk about love, a good portion of the time we talk about the loss of love. In Danal HallÆs (p. 1) ôMy Son My Executioner,ö the speaker uses figurative language to identify her ôsonö as also her ôexecutioner.ö A motherÆs love for her son is as deep and strong as any bond of love between individuals, if not, perhaps, the strongest of all love bonds. However, in this poem the speaker is not viewing her son in the typically manner associated with someone who ôlovesö another. Instead, she is seeing her beloved son as a symbol of her aging and eventual mortality. As the mother shares, ôSweet death, small son, our instrument / Of mortality, / Your cries and hungers document / Our bodily decay,ö (Hall, p. 1).
Just because the speaker-mother in this poem does not describe or view her son in the manner typically associated with a motherÆs love of a son, this does not imply on any level that she somehow loves her son less than any other loving mother. In fact, by equating her son with aging and mortality, the mother is actually underscoring just how much she does love her son. For the mother is suggesting that her primary purpose of existence is to leave behind an ôinstrumentö of ôimmortalityö in his person, (Hall, p. 1). In doing so, she is not only suggesting her awareness of her mortality, but she is making the case that she loves her son so much she has no problem sacrificing her own life for the life of the ôquietö and ôsmallö child that her ôbody warms,ö (Hall, p. 1). In this manner, she is making a strong statement about just how much she loves her son.
Hall, Danal. ôMy Son My Executioner,ö p. 1.
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