Mothering modes: analyzing mother roles in novels by twentieth-century United States women writers

Resistance in African Literature (1997), Obioma Nnaemeka writes that “victims are also agents 
who can change their lives and affect other lives in radical ways” (3). Here, Nnaemeka considers 

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the simultaneous victimhood and power of the mother (5). This is an example of the mother 
using the power she does have. By relying on her own inner strength or her sheer desire to be 
effective, the mother character is capable of overcoming some of the odds that usually work 
against other women in her particular situation. For example, Beloved’s Sethe Suggs goes from 
escaped slave woman and jailed convict to self-supporting cook. Many social scientists tend to 
agree with the theory that poverty and lack of formal education breed overall ignorance and 
crime. This is the scheme of thought that generates the push behind social prevention and 
intervention programs, such as stay-in-school and anti-gang programs that have proven necessary 
in some instances. However, Bastard Out of Carolina’s Anney Boatwright and A Tree Grows in 
Brooklyn’s Katie Nolan are examples of extremely poor mothers, who rely on honest, hard work 
for survival even in the worst of times.
Another coping strategy involves the recognition of parenting failures and making 
appropriate adjustments. In some situations, the mother struggles not to repeat the parenting 
blunders inflicted upon her during her own childhood. In other instances, the mother recognizes 
her own parenting failures and corrects them. Sometimes the only corrective measure is a drastic 
one. This is the case with Bastard’s Anney Boatwright and her decision to relinquish her 
mothering duties to her own sister. Lastly, another coping strategy is the association with 
women-centered support networks. Again, these women may be relatives, friends, and/or 
othermothers. However, in some of these situations the network aids the daughter against the 
mother’s will. For example, Silla Boyce, in Brown Girl, Brownstones, considers the three women 
who aid in her daughter’s positive development as mere meddlers and actually hates two of them 
and works toward getting rid of them. 

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By focusing specifically on the mothering of daughters, this study continues the 
discussion and exploration of what is considered by many theorists, such as Adrienne Rich and 
Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, as the most intense parent-child relationship that exists in literature 
and even in real life. By intense, I mean extremely emotional, highly sensitive, and deeply 
strained. The fictional mother-daughter relationships in this study provide engaging examples of 
this characterization. Brown-Guillory writes the following about mother-daughter theorizing:
“Research suggests that [the] mother-daughter dyad experiences a love/hate relationship, often 
because the mother tries painstakingly to convey knowledge about how to survive in a racist, 
sexist, and classist world while the daughter rejects her mother’s experiences as invalid in 
changing social times” (2). Many might argue that there are certainly great examples of intense 
parent-child relationships that involve fathers and/or sons. This should definitely be recognized, 
but it is not, however, the focus of this study. Although, in four of the novels chosen for this 
study, the father-daughter bond is explored in some depth but only as a means of understanding 
the greater intensity and importance of the mother-daughter bond with which it is compared and 
contrasted. Also in the two novels in Chapter 3 of this study, the mother-son bond is treated in 
very much the same fashion; that is as a comparative tool, and also as a means to explore the 
mother’s experiences and coping strategies.
So then, one might ask why so much intensity exists within the mother-daughter 
relationship. One analysis that would certainly contribute to that intensity is that women who live 
in a society where they are considered inferior to their male counterparts and who choose to 
become mothers must teach the daughters they rear how to survive in a male-dominated society. 
A second analysis that would certainly contribute to that intensity is that some women, who 
never learn independence themselves, must rear daughters who desire autonomy. Another 

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analysis that would certainly contribute to that intensity is that some women almost 
automatically rear their sons as inheritors of autonomy but rear their daughters with the double-
standard hand of cautious subservience. Because men are usually reared with the expectation of 
the position of superiority, these analyses do not apply to their father-son relationships. Because 
mothering daughters involves these complications and so many other oppressive circumstances, 
the need for coping strategies should be readily understood.
While examining the mother-daughter relationship utilizing a vast array of criticism, it is 
my intention to discuss the mother-daughter relationship with a central focus on the mother, 
taking into account that these relationships are real for both mother and daughter, and do not 
resemble the idea of the perfect mother-daughter relationship. In the chapters of this study, the 
mother-daughter relationships vary to a great degree and have their own unique complications, 
failures, and successes. 
The pairings of novels were selected due to their treatment of similar mothering 
complications and coping strategies. They are also arranged by chapters according to the 
increasing success of the mother-daughter relationships analyzed in the works chosen for 
particular chapters. The chapters progress as follows: Chapter 1 focuses on the worst mothering 
examples, Chapter 2 focuses on fervent, yet ineffective mothering, Chapter 3 focuses on initially 
misunderstood, yet moderately successful mothering, and Chapter 4 focuses on difficult, yet 
successful mothering. Successful mothering refers to producing autonomous children who are or 
are capable of becoming productive citizens and successful parents themselves. These novels 
were chosen as examples of how mothering is represented in our society because: 1) they can 
provide examples of how particular oppressive circumstances associated with mothering may be 
addressed, 2) they can provide examples of how various coping strategies may affect those 

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oppressive circumstances under which mothering takes place, and 3) they can provide examples 
of behaviors or beliefs associated with mothering that may be or may become detrimental to 
individuals or groups. Mothering, whether fictional or real, is a topic so powerful that it invites 
perspectives from several areas of scholarship. The following sections are surveys of those 
different perspectives and how those perspectives intersect with this study.