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Morning Song

Morning Song

by Sylvia Plath
 Table of Contents

Morning Song Theme of Family

"Morning Song" is a sneak peek into the very first moments of a family's formation. We witness as a woman goes from being a single person to being a mother. Presto! We've got a family. Funnily enough, though, not everyone is immediately overjoyed at the thought of spending their lives with a small, screaming bundle o' joy. Despite the tension that we see in the poem, by the end, we feel that the new family is forming strong bonds.

Questions About Family

  1. How does our speaker relate to her baby?
  2. Is this poem a description of a family or not? What makes you come to this conclusion?
  3. Do you think that the speaker in this poem is a bad mother? Why or why not?
  4. In line 7, the speaker claims that she's not any closer to the baby than any other natural element. Do you think she changes her mind? If so, when?

Chew on This


The speaker's feelings for her child are entirely natural.

The speaker and her child have formed a strong mother-child bond by the end of the poem.

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