Who Is Jessie's Last Conversation With Mama In Night Mother

799 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis in 'night, mother

Jessie’s Last Conversation with Mama ‘Night Mother, a play by Marsha Norman, focuses on the last conversation between Mama and her daughter Jessie, before Jessie commits suicide. Jessie is in her late thirties or early forties; she is no angsty teenager trying to evoke anger from her mother. One could argue that this last conversation between Jessie and her mother centers around Jessie trying to ready her mother for her death, or trying to understand Mama’s choices over Jessie’s lifetime. Rather, Jessie chooses to tell her mother of her suicide plan to hurt her, and their conversation is about the mistakes Mama has made in regards to Jessie. Mama doesn’t need Jessie. When Mama tells Jessie that she does so much, and that she doesn’t have …show more content…

“And I can’t do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work” (26). She actually could change her life, but she has no desire to do that. She has no job, and she does not want one. She doesn’t have friends to visit, and she doesn’t even go outside to exercise. There are no mentions of her having any hobbies in ‘Night Mother. She lives with her mother because her ex-husband Cecil left. Jessie has a son, but she does not approve of his lifestyle, so she doesn’t keep in touch with him. She can’t stand her brother and sister-in-law. In short, Jessie doesn’t like anything or anyone, including …show more content…

This bitterness is clear when Jessie says, “You mean to tell me I had fits all the time as a kid and you just told me I fell down or something and it wasn’t til I had the fit when Cecil was looking that anybody bothered to find out what was the matter with me?” (46). Mama tries to explain that she wanted Jessie to have a normal childhood, and that she also didn’t want Jessie’s father to know, because he also had seizures. Jessie can’t understand her mother’s reasoning, and she doesn’t want to understand. She just wants to bring up her hurt over the past decades before she chooses to end her

Show More
Related

  • Jessie's Friendship In The Slave Dancer By Paula Fox

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    Purvis wanted Jessie to toughen up so he would survive living on the Moonlight, which he achieved by treating Jessie as an adult, not like an infant. Purvis taught Jessie not to whine and which warned him not to show his concern towards the slaves. By being firm with Jessie, Purvis proves that he has Jessie’s best interests at heart and is looking out for him. Jessie realised Purvis's attitude towards him was Purvis’s way to show how much he cared about Jessie. Telling Jessie not to show concern towards the slaves and not to whine about his situation is evidence that Purvis and Jessie’s friendship was not sweet but instead helped by developing a friendship built on

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Road Prologue By Cormac Mccarthy

    254 Words  | 1 Pages

    The boy’s mother will take the easy way out for herself so that she won’t have to fight through the pain. By taking her own life, she will leave the boy in the father’s hands. The boy misses his mother everyday

    Read More

  • The Boat, by Alistair Macleod

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.

    Read More

  • Culture And Stereotypes In The TV Series, Jessie And Lab Rats

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    The TV series, Jessie is set in the Upper West Side of New York City. Jessie is a nanny for a wealthy family of four culturally diverse, adopted siblings. In the episode titled “Are You Cooler Than a 5th Grader,” Ravi, an Indian adoptee, enters the American school system

    Read More

  • Suffering and Surviving in James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mama, as a member of an older generation, represents the suffering that has always been a part of this world. She spent her life coexisting with the struggle in some approximation to harmony. Mama knew the futility of trying to escape the pain inherent in living, she knew about "the darkness outside," but she challenged herself to survive proudly despite it all (419). Mama took on the pain in her family in order to strengthen herself as a support for those who could not cope with their own grief. Allowing her husband to cry for his dead brother gave her a strength and purpose that would have been hard to attain outside her family sphere. She was a poor black woman in Harlem, yet she was able to give her husband permission for weakness, a gift that he feared to ask for in others. She gave him the right to a secret, personal bitterness toward the white man that he could not show to anyone else. She allowed him to survive. She marveled at his strength, and acknowledged her part in it, "But if he hadn't had...

    Read More

  • Book Analysis: People Shaped Wes Moore

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    In contrast to Joy, the other Wes’ mom Mary played a much weaker parent’s role. This is primarily due to the fact that Mary did not finish college and became pregnant at a very young age. She was her children's sole provider but was not ma...

    Read More

  • The Mother Daughter Relationship in I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...cts of the mother and the descriptions, which are presented to us from her, are very conclusive and need to be further examined to draw out any further conclusions on how she ?really? felt. The mother-daughter relationship between the narrator and her daughter bring up many questions as to their exact connection. At times it seems strong, as when the narrator is relating her childhood and recounting the good times. Other times it is very strained. All in all the connection between the two seems to be a very real and lifelike account of an actual mother-daughter relationship.

    Read More

  • Everyday Use by Alice Walker

    1476 Words  | 3 Pages

    The daughter alludes to an idea that her mother was also judged harshly and made to feel ashamed. By the daughters ability to see through her mothers flaws and recognize that she was as wounded as the child was, there is sense of freedom for both when the daughter find her true self. Line such as “your nightmare of weakness,” and I learned from you to define myself through your denials,” present the idea that the mother was never able to defeat those that held her captive or she denied her chance to break free. The daughter moments of personal epiphany is a victory with the mother because it breaks a chain of self-loathing or hatred. There is pride and love for the women they truly were and is to be celebrated for mother and daughter.

    Read More

  • Free Glass Menagerie Essays: The Destruction of Laura

    1116 Words  | 3 Pages

    Laura's mother and brother shared some of her fragile tendencies. Amanda, Laura's mother, continually lives in the past. Her reflection of her teenage years continually haunts Laura. To the point where she forces her to see a "Gentleman Caller" it is then that Tom reminds his mother not to "expect to much of Laura" she is unlike other girls. But Laura's mother has not allowed herself nor the rest of the family to see Laura as different from other girls. Amanda continually lives in the past when she was young a pretty and lived on the plantation. Laura must feel she can never live up to her mothers expectations. Her mother continually reminds her of her differences throughout the play.

    Read More

  • Characterisms And Symbolism In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    She anticipates that soon her daughter Maggie will be married and she will be living peacefully alone. Mama decides that she will wait in the yard for her daughter Dee's arrival. Mama knows that her other daughter, Maggie, will be nervous throughout Dee's stay, self -conscious of her scars and burn marks and jealous of Dee's much easier life. Mama fantasizes about reunion scenes on television programs in which a successful daughter embraces the parents who have made her success possible.

    Read More

  • A Mother's Displeasure with Her Life in Rita Dove's Daystar

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    Similarly to the way people hold expectations for the daystar, or sun, to rise every day, mothers are expected to perform their duties like cleaning the house or taking care of the children. Both are taken advantage of and are not fully appreciated until they stop performing their duties. Throughout the poem, the woman’s daughter and husband are given names, “Liza” (line 12) and “Thomas” (line 17) respectively, but not her. The woman is only referred to as “she” or “her” which further highlights the lack of acknowledgement she receives. The mother is taken for granted by her family and is not regarded as important. Her efforts are ignored and she is never thanked for completing her tasks around the house because that is the role she is “supposed” to fulfill.

    Read More

  • Lusus Naturae Analysis

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Narrator’s family treats her like a monster by resenting and neglecting her, faking her death, and locking her in her room all day. The Narrator’s family resents her, proof of this is found when the Narrator states “[My mother] came and went as quickly as she could.

    Read More

  • Mama’s Character Traits in Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mama is a very quiet character in the beginning of the story. The book starts off when papa throws a missal at Jaja for not attending the Communion. The missal papa throws causes Mama’s favorite figurines to fall and break. Mama quietly observes the scene and she cleans it up. Out of respect for Eugene, she has nothing to say even though the figurines were something she favors and cares about. Adichie writes, “She stared at the figurin...

    Read More

  • Essay on the Dysfunctional Family of The Glass Menagerie

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    The three family members are adults at the time of this play, struggling to be individuals, and yet, very enmeshed and codependent with one another. The overbearing and domineering mother, Amanda, spends much of her time reliving the past; her days as a southern belle. She desperately hopes her daughter, Laura, will marry. Laura suffers from an inferiority complex partially due to a minor disability that she perceives as a major one. She has difficulty coping with life outside of the apartment, her cherished glass animal collection, and her Victrola. Tom, Amanda's son, resents his role as provider for the family, yearns to be free from him mother's constant nagging, and longs to pursue his own dreams. A futile attempt is made to match Laura with Jim, an old high school acquaintance and one of Tom's work mates.

    Read More

  • Puppy by George Saunders

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...

    Read More

More about Who Is Jessie's Last Conversation With Mama In Night Mother

Open Document