Everybody's Mother

Everybody's Mother

1. ellipses

   • and so on...
     • Form imitates the meaning
       • Lochhead doesn't need to finish the sentence because the connection between mother and child is universally experienced and understood

2. Superlative

   • "too smothering much"
     • Overpowering/excessive love
       • Emphasises the 'Catch-22' situation that mothers find themselves in where they can never get it right

3. Hyperbole

   • "Absolutely everyone's mother"
     • Emphasises the way that mothers tend to 'mythologise' themselves because of the power imbalance in the mother child relationship that gives the mother the power to create narratives that romanticise her experiences - possibly also the desire of children to romanticise their mothers