When Hushpuppy Analysis

Hushpuppy’s experience of meeting her mother takes place in a surreal environment that she’d only ever imagined. When she realizes that her mother has settled for the apathy of a kind of life in limbo, with neither stability nor commitment, Hushpuppy finds her own sense of place and purpose and returns with clarity and in urgency to her father. There is an apparent awareness of loyalty for her father, who took care of her, to be sure in his own nontraditional and not entirely effective ways, yet still he was there for her. She finds strength in this moment of realization, from knowing love and being valued and belonging to her father and the Bathtub community. Hushpuppy awakens to the newfound freedom and the certainty she had been seeking. She’s ready then to face her fears: fear of her father’s death, fear of being alone, fear of the unstable environment, and fear for her sinking community. The beasts approach …show more content…
This is a pivotal moment in the story, because after she forces him to come back with them to the Bathtub, and she sees him slowly deteriorate, this compels her to run, in fear and desperation, to the light that touches the sea, which leads her to her mother. In her mother’s embrace, she counts how many times she has ever been held, and aside from being held by her mother at that moment, the select few other times she’s been held has been by her father. This new acquired knowledge of who her mother is, where her stance is on ever going back from where she came from, along with her reminder of her father, is enough to grant Hushpuppy her moment of enlightenment. It’s her father who has raised her all her life, not her mother, and though her mother’s place is still undetermined, as she’s still floating somewhere in the sea, Hushpuppy’s place is with her community, which is her true family, and with her dying