Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

30 amanda putnam generational and matrilineal. Many of the women in Morrison’s novels are mothers who have been enslaved or otherwise victimized by intense racism and oppression, which then embodies itself in violence toward their own, albeit sometimes as a mothering tool. The home, then, becomes both a place of inspiration and violence, mingling the two in ways that are not easily separated. As bell hooks discusses in “Homeplace,” the black domestic arena created by black women has been crucial to the reassurance of black children and their self-identities. She states, “Black women resisted [white oppression] by making homes where all black people could strive to be subjects, not objects, where we could be affirmed in our minds and hearts despite poverty, hardship, and deprivation, where we could restore to ourselves the dignity denied us on the outside in the public world” (hooks 1990, 42). Connecting hooks’s point with Morrison’s stories means realizing the possibility that daughters may have learned violent patterns from loving mothers, as well as those who accepted white oppression. In other words, some black mothers may have intentionally taught violent behaviors to their daughters to prepare for their daughters’ future survival in a world that devalued them. Claudia Tate states, “[T]here’s a special kind of . . . violence in writings by black women—not a bloody violence, but violence nonetheless. Love, in the Western notion, is full of possession, distortion, and corruption. It’s a slaughter without the blood” (as quoted in Hinson 2001, 147). When children learn violence from within the home and from their caretakers, it becomes ordinary and natural and, later, is incorporated into their own behaviors and thoughts. Thus, while readers definitively notice the violence between generations, often the characters themselves do not articulate their feelings about the learned violent behaviors. Even so-called “good” mothers in several Morrison novels show slight violence at times toward their children, wreaking havoc on their self-esteem and teaching them to engage in violent behavior with others. 4 In one of the first scenes of The Bluest Eye, both Claudia and Freda get sick and the narration reflects the impatience of their typically caring mother: “How . . . do you expect anybody to get anything done if you all are sick?” (Morrison 1994, 10). Claudia’s narration continues: “My mother’s voice drones on. She is not talking to me. She is talking to the puke, but she is calling it my name: Claudia” (ibid., 11). The sick girls feel unloved and miserable, even though their parents are normally nurturing and attentive. These simple acts of slight violence evoke pity for the girls, while showing readers a world that is often uncomfortable or painful: sometimes even loving mothers will inflict
fall 2011 / black women, gender, and families 31 emotional abuse on their children, which, in turn, teaches them to repeat the abuse on each other. Similarly, in Sula, Helene Wright’s desire to remove herself and her daughter completely from the taint of the whorehouse Helene had been born in manifests itself in quashing Nel’s curiosity: “Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by the mother until [Helene] drove her daughter’s imagination underground” (Morrison 1982, 18). Helene’s worry that Nel will portray any semblance of the qualities of Helene’s prostitute mother indicates her willingness to sacrifice strong qualities of creativity or intelligence for meek obedience. In doing so, Nel’s “parents had succeeded in rubbing down to a dull glow any sparkle or splutter she had” (ibid., 83). The girl’s obedience is steadfast, but the parental violence to her maturation process forces Nel to develop into a woman who does not understand the options available to her as an adult. Unlike Sula who becomes a dominant force in her own life, Nel meekly follows along, having suffered the passive violence of her mother’s repression. In several Morrison novels, maternal emotional abandonment changes children (usually daughters) in unfavorable ways, causing them to inflict violence on others. In The Bluest Eye, Geraldine met all the “physical needs” of her son Junior, but it is painfully clear to him (and to readers) that she prefers the cat (Morrison 1994, 85–86). The subtle but emotionally effective violence of withholding motherly affection contributes to Junior’s eventual desire to “bully girls” (ibid., 87), and he becomes a tyrant to any child younger or smaller than him. In Morrison’s newest novel, A Mercy, another “good” mother chooses to send away her young enslaved daughter, in the hope of preventing her daughter from being sexually abused. 5 However, without acknowledgment of the reasoning for this choice, the daughter internalizes what she perceives as her mother’s emotional and physical abandonment, eventually erupting in more violence against a future rival. In the first chapter of A Mercy, Florens, who is “maybe seven or eight” (Morrison 2008, 5) misunderstands her mother’s reasoning in sending her away with a new owner as payment of a debt, instead of going with her to the new place. Florens remembers, with childlike sadness, “forever and ever. Me watching, my mother listening, her baby boy on her hip. Senhor is not paying the whole amount he owes to Sir. Sir saying he will take instead the woman and the girl, not the baby boy and the debt is gone. A minha mãe begs no. Her baby boy is still at her breast. Take the girl, she says, my daughter, she says. Me. Me” (ibid., 7). The betrayal Florens feels is evident in her version—her pain as she repeats “Me. Me . . .
Page 1 and 2: Mothering Violence: Ferocious Femal
Page 3 and 4: fall 2011 / black women, gender, an
Page 5: fall 2011 / black women, gender, an
Page 19: fall 2011 / black women, gender, an

Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?