In “The Farming of Gods,” by Ibi Zoboi, Innocent (the father), Marisol (the mother), and Mango (the child/offspring/thing) are utilized to investigate what it means to be a parent. Mango, the offspring, is not a typical baby – he has multiple limbs, eyes, no body shape, and glows yellow/orange (not to mention that he nurses from the Earth and causes plants to grow). Marisol and Innocent tackle the parenthood of their “baby”/”seedling” drastically different through their reactions toward Mango, the isolation of father and mother, and Marisol’s motherly and womanly wants/needs. Once Mango is born, Marisol and Innocent possess polar opposite reactions when seeing it/him. Marisol, for example, views Mango as their child, and cannot view him as …show more content…
Innocent, as the father, was only able to watch as Marisol “cursed the scientists for drawing too much blood in that one, prodding this one, and not allowing the other to sleep long enough. She’d become distant and sad. [Innocent] was allowed to visit, but she rejected [him], only asking for her ‘babies’” (57). Marisol’s motherly instincts take over, and her one and only desire is to see her “babies,” and that desire overtakes any desire she may feel to see her husband. Innocent, in turn, feels neglected as her husband and the isolation of the two continues to grow stronger and …show more content…
When the triplets were first born, the nurses allowed Marisol to be with her “babies” but never “allowing her to nurse them” (57). In the diction of this sentence with the word “allow,” we can infer that Marisol has wanted to nurse them, but has been restricted from doing so. Though she feels this longing to nurse them, and to care for them, Innocent is repulsed and sickened just by their appearance. Later, once Innocent and Marisol escape, Innocent “caught Marisol trying to breastfeed the seedling. She’d been longing to complete the cycle of mothering. She cried when it wouldn’t latch, cursing herself for not being a good mother” (59). Marisol feels like a failure of a “mother” because she cannot provide what her offspring desire and need. Innocent, on the other hand, knows exactly what they need and what Marisol has been pushing from her mind; he allows Mango to nurse from the soil of the Earth, and from there, watches plants grow up from that very spot. Although Marisol feels her own wants and needs as a mother, her not being able to provide for her “babies” ultimately causes a fracture in her mind where the dissimilarity between Mango and a regular child becomes apparent, if ever so
At age sixteen, Janie is a beautiful young girl who is about to enter womanhood and experience the real world. Being joyous and unconcerned, she is thrown into an arranged marriage with Logan Killicks. He is apparently unromantic and unattractive. Logan is a widower and a successful farmer who desires a wife who would not have her own opinions. He is set on his own ways and is troubled by Janie, who forms her own opinions and refuses to work. He is unable to sexually appeal or satisfy Janie and therefore does not truly connect with her as husband and wife should. Janie's wild and young spirit is trapped within her and she plays the role of a silent and obeying wife. But her true identity cannot withhold itself for she has ambitions and she wills to see the world and find love. There was a lack of trust and communication between Logan and Janie. Because of the negative feelings Janie has towards Logan, she deems that this marriage is not what she desires it to be. The pear tree and the bees had a natural att...
Baby narrates her story through her naïve, innocent child voice. She serves as a filter for all the events happening in her life, what the narrator does not know or does not comprehend cannot be explained to the readers. However, readers have reason not to trust what she is telling them because of her unreliability. Throughout the beginning of the novel we see Baby’s harsh exposure to drugs and hurt. Jules raised her in an unstable environment because of his constant drug abuse. However, the narrator uses flowery language to downplay the cruel reality of her Montreal street life. “… for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin” (10). We immediately see as we continue reading that Baby thinks the way she has been living her life is completely normal, however, we as readers understand that her life is in fact worse then she narrates. Baby knows about the impermanent nature of her domestic security, however, she repeatedly attempts to create a sense of home each time her and Jules move to another apartm...
...en-year-old girl”. She has now changed mentally into “someone much older”. The loss of her beloved brother means “nothing [will] ever be the same again, for her, for her family, for her brother”. She is losing her “happy” character, and now has a “viole[nt]” personality, that “[is] new to her”. A child losing its family causes a loss of innocence.
Life as a kid is effortless, where the only motive is to have fun. Some people never want to have responsibility and complexity that comes with being an adult as they realize they must take accountability sometime. Likewise in "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza tries her best to avoid is renegade against the normal expectations of women on Mango Street. Esperanza's only way to avoid having to become part of the adult world around her, is by entering The Monkey Garden where she gets to be a kid. Esperanza's depiction of the serene and carefree descriptions of the garden contrast the confused and disturbed attitude Esperanza has towards Sally and the boys' game. As she finally realizes she cannot remain a kid forever, Esperanza feel alienated and alone.
The joy of conceiving a child is a beautiful thing. How is it that a man and a woman can come together and create such a creature? How is it that a woman can carry life in her for nine months? Many children are their parent’s joy. Even through the cries, the puke, the feces, and everything. Somehow we still find the heart love them uncontrollably. Many commercials show on television about children overseas dying due to starvation and diseases. What is a parent to do when they lose that very thing they created? What do they do when their son or their daughter is suddenly taken away from them or in more serious cases they die? Infant death is one of the saddest things that a parent can go through. I cannot even imagine the pain and the hurt that an infant death could cause towards loved ones. This is the situation we find in Dana Gioia’s poem “Planting a Sequoia.” In this emotional poem, the speaker describes the process of burying an infant loved one. The setting was in Sicily, which is an island in Italy. The poem is told from a father’s perspective. It addresses how the planting of a sequoia will continue to live and grow as a symbol of the first son’s birth, which is now dead. A sequoia is said to be one of the longest living trees and is said to live longer than humans. Dana Gioia was describing in the poem how when every other family member has died off, the sequoia, which is buried for the speaker’s son, will forever remain through generations.
... The mother's approach is a source of terror for the child, written as if it is a horror movie, suspense created with the footsteps, the physical embodiment of fear, the doorknob turns. His terror as he tries to run, but her large hands hold him fast, is indicative of his powerless plight. The phrase, 'She loves him.' reiterates that this act signifies entrapment as there is no reciprocation of the ‘love’.
Chief in the comprehension of Paul’s longing for motherly affection is having an understanding of Paul’s mother. She is generally a detached woman. Cold by most accounts, even her own, “only she herself [knows] that at the center of her heart [is] a hard little place that [can] not feel love, no, not for anybody” (Lawrence, 559). Paul’s mother feels the three children are a burden on an already cash strapped and unfulfilling relationship with her husband. Therefore, she is phony and removed where they are concerned. “She [has] bonny children, yet she [feels] they [have] been thrust upon her, and she [can] not love them […] when her children [are] present, she always [feels] the center of her heart go hard” (Lawrence, 559). Symptoms of post-partum depr...
For most women, getting pregnant and becoming a mother transpires them to a time in their life that is filled with joy and gratitude. Such enthusiastic emotions arise from the fact that the soon to be mom realizes she will have someone to love, influence, and guide. Marking the start and development of maternal love. In Toni Morrison's novel, Sula, every major character's life is shaped by the presence or absence of maternal love. Being that the mother-child relationship has the ability to positively or negatively define the child's identity development.
...ft pregnant with his child, and pushed to madness by these terrible circumstances: she finds her beauty in the bluest eye.
The baby symbolizes revival and forgiveness. Adding on, the baby gave the parents a new
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
According to the cliché rhyme,“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” What happens, though, if the “baby in the baby carriage” never comes to fruition? Millions of couples struggle with infertility every year. Despite relentless effort and sometimes even therapy, many relationships become strained by the curse of sterility. Both partners in a childless (yet child-wanting) couple feel the tension of the struggle to become parents. One literature-based couple that struggles with infertility is Shakespeare’s Macbeths. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth yearn for a child and react to their unsuccessful attempts at becoming parents in psychologically understandable ways.
Gender is a popular topic in the world today. It is a subject that is talked about and argued over, yet even with all the discussions being had, there are numerous other matters related to gender that should also be considered and included in the conversation. One of these issues is parenthood. The two articles “The Social Construction of Gender” and “The Joys of Parenthood, Reconsidered” each talk about how their topics are influenced by culture.
People’s lives change in many ways, but everyone experiences at least one time where their life is redefined. This is known as loss of innocence. In Marigolds, Eugenia W. Collier uses internal conflict to illustrate how knowledge is gained through the loss of innocence. Lizabeth gains knowledge that changes her perspective of the world as a result of internal conflict, and experiences loss of innocence.
Finally, I argue that “truth in mothering is a far better policy” (Thurer 334). As Eva observes during a prison visit, “it was following…pat scripts that had helped to land me in [this] room” (Shriver 44). In her letters, she is finally able to break free from the wife role and speak truths that the mask of motherhood had suppressed. Her authenticity with Kevin during the prison visits nets more progress in their relationship than all those years of pretending ever had. When she finally asks Kevin why he did it, he is honest about his uncertainty. Remorseful, he returns Celia’s eye to her and asks her to bury it. He then embraces her, showing vulnerability. As Eva and Kevin look upon each other in this moment unmasked, she finally realizes, “I love my son” (Shriver 400). Ruddick describes attentive love – a mother perceiving and supporting a child’s real experience – as a counter to the mask’s fantasy and inauthenticity (105). When Eva and Kevin finally unmask, she is able to attentively love him as he truly is. Eva’s love, in its unconventionality, is not the “continuous, unconditional” mother-love of myth; but in its authenticity, it is far more meaningful (Rich