The poem, 35/10, by Sharon Olds, unveils a mother's thoughts about aging and growing up as she combs through the hair of her adolescent daughter. The speaker is the mother, who questions the aging process just as much as every woman on the planet. Instead of embracing the positive effects of growing old, the speaker chooses to highlight the most unfavorable parts, comparing them to the youthful qualities of her own daughter. I believe that while the narrator is thinking about what she has become, she is also reminiscing on the time when she was once the young girl sitting in the chair having her mother brush her hair. The speaker uses a choice of words that glorify her daughter, but downplay her own physical qualities. For example, she discusses "Brushing out our daughter's brown silken hair," but describes herself as "the silver-haired servant behind her". Yes, the mother was literally standing behind her combing her hair, but this also could have an alternate meaning about the mother always putting her child's needs before her own needs, wants, and appearances.
I imagine that the mother must be talking to her spouse, because she uses the words "our daughter" in the first line of the poem. She asks the question, "Why is it just as we begin to go they begin to arrive?" wondering why youth is unable to be a quality that both mother and daughter could share. Although this process is fairly new for the woman to experience, it is not something unexpected or original, "It's an old story--the oldest we have on our planet". This poem utilizes many similes and metaphors to describe humans to nature, "As my skin shows its dry pitting, she opens like a moist precise flower on the tip of a cactus".There was once a time where being able to bear a child was a woman's most prized quality. I am not sure when this was written but if this was taking place in the mid-1900's, I could imagine the mother's hidden jealousy for her daughter as she is gaining this ability, while the mother is losing it.
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