Analysis Of Mother-Child Relationships In Toni Morrison's Beloved

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The following chapter analyses the description of mothering experiences told from the maternal perspective in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (2003). Despite their different socio-cultural and historical frameworks, these two novels are significant in the context of this dissertation because of the way in which they introduce the maternal perspective on mother-child relationship, which has predominantly been overshadowed in literature by the daughters’ and sons’ totalising viewpoints. The first part of the chapter examines the representation of black motherhood through Sethe’s character, an enslaved woman who decides to kill her children instead of condemning them to a life of slavery. …show more content…

Their public celebration of maternal presence and influence and their portrayals of powerful mothers, combined with the relative absence of strong male figures, make this uniquely feminist tradition a particularly interesting one, which can be used to explore issues of maternal presence and absence, voice and silence. Moreover, these novels become an interesting place where the marginality of black women’s condition in a white, male society can be investigated. In Passing the Torch: A Mother and Daughter Reflect on Their Experiences Across Generations, African-Canadian theorists Wanda Thomas Bernard and Candace Bernard state that black mothering is not just a personal act, but a very political action. This is due to the fact that black mothers and grandmothers are considered the ‘guardians of the generations’, who have historically been charged with the responsibility of providing education, social and political awareness, in addition to unconditional love, nurturance and values to their own children and the children in their …show more content…

The first ‘white label’ imposed upon black mothering experience portrays black mothers as totally self-sacrificing creatures, whose identity is heavily marked by their caregiving services, and who are praised for their obedience and sacrifice of self. This is the role played by Sethe at the beginning of the novel, when she emerges as the personification of the ideal black mother, who is so devoted to her children’s well-being that she risks her own life to offer them a better future. The second representation depicts black mothers as ‘matriarchs,’ strong and protective beings, whose resistance to subordination is negatively judged. Sethe’s matriarchal spirit emerges when she perceives the threat of being enslaved again with her offspring. Unwilling to let her young be re-appropriated by schoolteacher and his nephews, she imposes her choice of freedom on them through

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