Summary Of Mama's Religious Beliefs

Willing to break her hope, sacrifice her family's religious beliefs, and hide her children from unpleasant truths qualifies Mama as an exceptional caregiver. During a woman’s period, she will capture excruciating cramps and need to eat in order to keep herself from throwing up. When Kambili gets bad cramps in a morning before mass, she needs to eat something, but knows she’s never, under no circumstances, supposed to break the Eucharistic fast. Mama is very sympathetic to Kambili as this happens to her too and says, “‘Eat a little corn flakes, quickly,’ Mama said” (101). Mama doesn’t like to break her religious beliefs because of her own values, and especially because she knows that papa will be very unhappy, so when she allows Kambili to eat before mass she is being incredibly caring and compassionate for her daughter.
For sacrificing her and her family's religious beliefs and knowing she would get beaten, certifies Mama as an excellent mom. Continuing being a good mother, Mama tries to hide her beatings from her children. Mama’s “eyes were vacant, like the eyes of those mad people who wandered around the roadside garbage dumps in town, pulling grimy, town canvas bags with their life fragments inside. ‘There was an accident, the baby is gone,’ she said” (34). Even though Mama is beaten until the point where her baby had perished, she is willing to keep it a secret in order to make her children not view their father as a complete monster. Also, the fact that her eyes were empty shows how she had lost hope again. This means that she was willing to keep her loss of hope to herself and try and not scar her children for the rest of their lives. Mama is the nicest and most thoughtful mother because she suffers just so her children can have a better