Conflict in The Victory by Anne Stevenson :: Victory

Conflict in The Victory by Anne Stevenson I survey you were my victory /though you cut me like a knife (Stevenson 1-2)  The break lines of Anne Stevensons poem The Victory set a tone of conflict. This poem, at its surface, expresses a mothers thoughts on giving birth to a son. Stevenson describes the mixed feelings m either mothers gravel upon the delivery of their first-year innate(p). The final release from pregnancy and bir social occasion pains, join with the excitement of bringing a live creature into this world, at first seem a victory to the spick-and-span p arnt. The author goes on to contradict the event as a victory. Using manner of speaking such as antagonist (5), bruise (6), and scary(13), she shows the darker side of childbirth. The mother has felt her feature lifes blood flowing that a stranger might live The stains of your ring bled from my veins. (6-8). That she sees her own child as a stranger is evident in lines nine and ten, where the chil d is described as a blind thing (9) with blank insect eyes(10). The mother portrays her baby as a bug, not even human. In the last section of the poem, two questions be asked, attesting to the mothers internal conflict. Why do I yield to love you?/ How have you won? (15-16). These unanswerable queries are some of the fundamental questions of our human existence.        below the topmost layer of meaning in The Victory, is an underlying theme that any parent or guardian will easily relate to. Children are born out of the great pain their mothers endure. They are helpless in one sense, yet they command the care of their parents. Stevenson describes the intrinsic helplessness of infants with the words Blind(9) and Hungry(14). Yet, this poem does not refer to new born babes alone. Birthing pains do not cease with the delivery of a child. The conflict described in this poem is felt by parents of gravid children as well. All parents give of their lifeb lood, at least in the stimulated sense, in raising and maintaining their offspring. The Victory is a poem written as if by a mother only just delivered of a new born son, yet the themes expressed in its lines apply to all the