The Youngest Daughter by Cathy Song - Essay Example

The Youngest Daughter by Cathy Song Cathy Song’s “The Youngest Daughter” is a narrative, free verse poem composed of five stanzas. It is of a first person perspective which, based from the title, shows that the speaker is the youngest daughter. The narrator tells about her daily activities with her mother who has been diabetic for thirty years. Due to her disease, she needs some assistance and from Asian tradition, specifically Korean and Chinese tradition, the youngest daughter is bound to perform such responsibility. Therefore, without any choice, the youngest daughter has to look after her mother and take care of her, returning all the mother’s sacrifices for her, her siblings and even their father. In trying to understand more clearly the matters the speaker is bringing to the reader’s attention, the speaker will be discussed further in detail together with the setting, style, ambiguity reflected in the poem and also the impact the poem has on this writer. Reading the poem once may not bring much sense because of the ambiguity of words used. One can never tell what the poet is really talking about not unless he knows pretty well Asian traditions which are pertinent in the poem. From the point of view of someone who is blinded about Asian traditions, the literal meanings can be understood but somehow, he would notice that obviously, the poet is saying something else other than what are literally meant by the words. For instance, the phrase, “The sky has been dark for many years”, could be well understood literally. However, it seems to be unrelated to the succeeding lines of the first paragraph so that one cannot help but question what the poet is trying to say behind such words. Similarly, the phrase also seems to have no relevance to the other paragraphs. In fact, the images created in each paragraph appear to be just separate circumstances in the speaker’s life which do not really give a clear overview of what she is presenting. Nevertheless, a little background about Chinese traditions, assuming that the speaker is Chinese because the author is of Chinese descent, will greatly help in understanding the poem. It is expected of the youngest Chinese daughter not to marry in order for her to be able to take care of the aging parents. In case she marries, she will still have the responsibility of taking care of them especially when they are sick. Considering the burdens of having one’s own family and the need to take care of one’s parents, it would perhaps be best for the youngest daughter not to marry. In the poem, it is obvious that the daughter opted for the latter. The phrase “The sky has been dark for many years”, now has a figurative meaning, describing how dark the years have gone by for the youngest daughter who has done nothing but take care of her ailing mother. From the fourth stanza, one can suppose that the youngest daughter has been attending to her mother’s needs for thirty years and that long a time could really put someone in a melancholic life and yearn for an escape. The youngest daughter, despite her obligations, still tries to dream about her future. Perhaps she has been doing that for the past thirty years so that thinking of her freedom now deeply hurts her. On the second stanza, the speaker says, “when I touch my eyelids, my hands react as if I had just touched something hot enough to burn”. Touching one’s eyelid could be an effort to clear one’s eyes, for her to look more clearly. However, whenever she looks at the realities of life, at the fact that she actually does not have to take all the obligations of taking care of her mother, she pains so much and therefore has to remove her hands away from her eyelids immediately. For the Chinese, it is almost a crime to leave aged parents to the care of other people. They cling to Confucius’ teachings that children have the responsibility of returning the care their parents have lavished on them. Understanding such image, this writer almost imagines the speaker’s migraine to be more of psychological rather than physical. Perhaps the daughter is seeking some reasons for her to be excused from her duties. Nevertheless, she proved to be unsuccessful with her attempt because her relationship with her mother almost gave an unspoken message that they have nothing to no one else to turn to but each other. This is where an ironic tone is presented. The daughter who is supposed to take care of her diabetic mother is now the one being cared for by her mother. This has not happened only once but at several occasions, “especially in the evenings- when the pain flares up”. The time when she is realizing that she already getting older, getting her chances of being married a lot slimmer; it is the time when she hurts most. In support to the speaker’s realization that she should not be the only one burdened with her mother’s care, it could be seen on the third stanza that she thinks about her siblings and even his father who sucked the breasts of her mother. This means that since she was not the only one to benefit from the care of their mother, she should not also be the only one benefitting her in her old age. However, that is what tradition asks of her and she must perform her duties despite her desire for justice. Perhaps her only escape would be the death of her mother. On the last stanza, a reader is almost shocked for what could have crossed the daughter’s mind. The image pictures a mother and daughter having their tea. Despite her age and ailment, the mother still prepares their meal for them, not trusting her daughter for what she might do. She knows that the daughter is planning her escape and because only her demise could give her that, she cannot sacrifice letting her daughter prepare her food. With such careful consideration of the mother, the daughter knows that she does not have any chance of poisoning her mother. Therefore, her toasting to her mother’s health is almost an act of desperation and giving up on the part of the daughter. She ends her narration by talking about the thousand cranes curtaining the window and flying up in a sudden breeze. This means that her life ends with her mother. All her chances of being free have been closed and have all gone with the breeze, leaving her with no hope at all. On the setting of the poem, the speaker limited it to the house, perhaps a parallelism to her limited lifestyle. She did not talk about any other activity such as work or a day off. She only described what is happening inside the room, with her and her mother as the only characters. She casts a melancholic atmosphere as she describes the setting so that the poet can be said to have successfully pictured not only the physical setting but also the struggles of the main character. Her style, using a first person narrator who articulately described the setting and expressed the ambiguity of her thoughts through simple words to make an impact on readers are all wonderfully put together in the poem. Read More