Summary 

Kamala Das’s “My Mother at Sixty-Six” is a single-sentence poem. The poet recalls her last meeting with her mother on the previous Friday. The poet visits her parent’s home. 

Having stayed for some days, she returns. Her mother accompanies her to the airport. 

While she is with her mother in the car, she looks at her aging mother’s face. Her mouth is open, and her face is ashen like a corpse.

She realizes with pain that she is getting old. It strikes her, but she does not brood over it for long. 

She soon looks outside and sees the backward movement of young trees and some merry children.

In the airport, the poet looks again at her mother’s pale face. Her face fades like a late winter’s moon.

She feels the same familiar ache that has been there since childhood. However, she does not express her feeling. At last, she tells her she will see her soon and keeps smiling.

Explanation

When we love someone, we always have a fear of losing the person. The more we try to hide the fear, the more it becomes intense.

Similarly, the poet loves her mother, and she is afraid of losing her mother.

Therefore, she tries to avoid the painful feeling. How does she escape the feeling? To discover, we need to dive into the poem.

“My Mother at Sixty-Six” by Kamala Das is a simple poem in which the poet visits her parent’s home and returns to Cochin, Kerela. Her mother is with her to company her to the airport.

While they are in the car, the poet finds her mother dozing. While dozing, her mouth is open. She notices her mother’s face is ashen like that of a corpse.

The poet uses a simile in “her face ashen like that of a corpse”. Her old mother’s face looks pale. Just like a corpse is lifeless, and pale, similarly, her mother’s face also looks pale because of aging.

Having seen her mother’s face is a painful experience. The poet feels pain because she realizes that her mother is becoming old and death could come anytime. As a result, she will be lonely.

To avoid the feeling, the poet looks outside. She sees the trees moving and the children coming out of their homes.

Along with other literary devices, we find these two images in the poem. The poet personifies the trees. Personification means attributing human characteristics to animals, or something non-human.

Trees can’t run. However, from the window of the car, it seems the trees are running in a backward direction. The ability to run is man’s capacity or man’s characteristic. Since the poet has assigned the man’s attribute to the trees, it means the poet personifies the trees.

The former image “Young Trees sprinting” represents the carefree and blissful days of the past that have already passed swiftly.

The latter “the merry children spilling/out of their homes” stands for the vitality of life. We can contrast the latter image with her mother.

One implies the liveliness and enthusiasm of life. Contrarily, the other connotes the end of life.

They reach the airport. After the security check; the poet again looks at her mother, who is standing a short distance away. Her mother’s face looks pale, like a late winter’s moon. Here, the poet uses again another simile.

The poet feels the “old familiar ache”. This familiar ache is her childhood fear. For every child, separation from the mother is painful.

Whenever the poet thinks about the separation from her mother, it breaks her and the pain has been disturbing her since childhood.

Seeing her mother at the airport, she thinks that this might be her last meeting with her mother. However, she does not express her fear to her mother. She instead again tries to ignore the painful feeling.

Therefore, she says, “see you soon, Amma” and she smiles, smiles, and smiles.

She knows very well that after the meeting, she might not see her forever. Despite this, she hides her feeling by smiling at her mother.

This is how she avoids her fear of losing her mother.

Poetic Devices

The poet uses literary devices like simile, personification, and repetition. For instance, her mother’s face is “ashen like that/ of a corpse.” is an example of a simile.

A simile is a figure of speech where we compare two different things based on similarities. 

The poet’s mother and the corpse are two different. However, we find a similarity in skin color. Just as a corpse’s skin is dry and lifeless, similarly, her mother’s skin looks lifeless. 

Before leaving the poet’s mother, the poet looks again at her mother. She compares her mother’s face to a late winter’s moon.

Similar to the colorless moon, her mother’s face is wan, pale, and colorless. 

The Theme of the Poem 

The central idea of the poem is the general tendency to avoid the pain of losing dear ones. We can gather two points from the title of the poem.

First, it is about the poet’s mother. Second, her age is sixty-six. She is a sixty-six-year-old woman. 

The poem is about the poet’s feelings about her aged mother. In this short poem, the poet expresses the pain of losing dear ones. The poet Kamala Das is afraid of losing her dear mother.

As her mother becomes old, the poet’s fear of losing her mother troubles her. To escape from the reality, the poet hides her feeling about her mother.

Therefore, the theme of “My Mother at Sixty-Six” is the theme of escape. When we are in a close relationship with someone, we become afraid of losing the person.

We are often not ready for the change that death brings to us. We often find the same theme in other poems of Kamala Das like My Grandmother’s House.

When the poet sees her mother who is beside her in the car, she feels her mother’s face is ashen like that of a corpse. The ashen face exhibits the lack of vigor of old age. 

She finds it hard to realize that her mother is growing old and there is not much time left. The feeling she is feeling is anticipatory fear. The feeling of losing dear ones is a psychological fear and universal. 

She feels the pain of realizing that her mother is getting old. Therefore, she looks outside her car to avoid the feeling. 

She sees moving young trees which are going backward swiftly. It creates an illusion of the backward movement of outer objects from a moving car.

The young trees signify the poet’s passing time, the time that she spent with her mother has swiftly passed by. The young trees denote childhood life, which has gone now.

Along with the image of young trees ‘sprinting’, the poet also brings the image of happy children. The poet sees some children coming out of their respective homes. The children, who are coming out to play, symbolize life and energy.

The poet uses these two images: young trees ‘sprinting’ and merry children to contrast each other. One suggests the loss of time, whereas the other stands for life. 

The same thought reoccurs at the airport. She again feels that her mother is getting old. She feels her mother’s pale face is like that of a winter’s moon.

The feeling of losing her mother causes aching in the poet. The ‘familiar ache’ is the constant painful reminder that she will lose her one day. This has been her fear since her childhood. 

The fear of losing her mother causes pain to her. She again ignores her painful feeling. Despite the realization, the poet avoids her feeling.

She says, “see you soon” and smiles at her old mother.

Her parting words signify her deep fear. Because though she tells her mother that they will meet her mother soon, she knows that this might be their last meeting. 

She feels uncomfortable at the thought of losing her. Therefore, she hides the feeling of losing her mother and escapes from it by smiling at her.

The repetition in her action of smiling signifies her attempt to resist her painful emotion. 

She lives far away from her mother, and there is a feeling of regret. Even though she wants to be with her mother, she cannot.

Therefore, she feels regret for her inability to the company of her old mother. Deep down, even the poet knows that her mother will not live long.