African American Motherhood
African American mothers play a unique role in the family structure as a result of the discrimination and prejudice that they have come to expect. A role that, though not outwardly feminine or gentile, is nonetheless very significant in the American story of motherhood. This new embodiment of motherhood questions conventional standards of behaviour, standards that associate maternity with specific behavioural traits. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison pokes fun at these traditional ideals of femininity and fragility that act to restrict and dictate the behaviour of women. Commonly in literature, if a woman falls short of fulfilling her patriarchal duties she is portrayed as an archetype, specifically the archetype of the bad mother. Morrison does
not portray negligent mothers, but mothers who have become tough and stern as a result of a lifetime of poverty and discrimination. She does so by placing these mothers in the kitchen but have them act in a non-feminine fashion. By locating these characters in this conventionally feminine space, but having them act in contrast to what is considered to be feminine the book breaks the myths of what a mother should and should not be. This inconstancy in space and behaviour acts to question the readers deeply established ideals of motherhood. One of the significant instances of this in The Bluest Eye occurs as Claudia’s mother is in the kitchen complaining about an issue: “The three of us, Pecola, Frieda, and I, listened to her downstairs in the kitchen fussing about the amount of milk Pecola had drunk.” (23). Later, Claudia calls her mother’s behaviour “insulting” and “painful”.The goal of this particular scene is not to frame Claudia’s mother as a crude and obscene character. This passage fabricates her as someone whose hostile attitudes, when looked at in a perceptive manner, can be traced back to the adversity and discrimination she has grown accustomed to. An adversity, at the heart of which lies poverty. A poverty, that along with racism, can mould African American mothers in to the cold and tough characters Morrison describes in her book.
not portray negligent mothers, but mothers who have become tough and stern as a result of a lifetime of poverty and discrimination. She does so by placing these mothers in the kitchen but have them act in a non-feminine fashion. By locating these characters in this conventionally feminine space, but having them act in contrast to what is considered to be feminine the book breaks the myths of what a mother should and should not be. This inconstancy in space and behaviour acts to question the readers deeply established ideals of motherhood. One of the significant instances of this in The Bluest Eye occurs as Claudia’s mother is in the kitchen complaining about an issue: “The three of us, Pecola, Frieda, and I, listened to her downstairs in the kitchen fussing about the amount of milk Pecola had drunk.” (23). Later, Claudia calls her mother’s behaviour “insulting” and “painful”.The goal of this particular scene is not to frame Claudia’s mother as a crude and obscene character. This passage fabricates her as someone whose hostile attitudes, when looked at in a perceptive manner, can be traced back to the adversity and discrimination she has grown accustomed to. An adversity, at the heart of which lies poverty. A poverty, that along with racism, can mould African American mothers in to the cold and tough characters Morrison describes in her book.