On the other hand, Adora’s complete carelessness towards Camille obliges her eldest daughter to develop her adaptive ego too early. She decides not to make ‘total environmental provision’ for her disobedient daughter, punishing the girl for her rebellious attitude and pushing her towards independence. In this way, Adora becomes the incarnation of both the desire to keep the obedient daughter tied to the maternal figure and the urge to push the disobedient one into adulthood. The contrasting attitude shown towards her offspring results in the impossibility for Amma and Camille to learn how to deal with anxiety. The quality of Adora’s care conditions her daughters’ growth of self and of their basic emotional self-image. Because of their damaging
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The dysfunctional bonds between the female characters tend to confirm the importance of having an attachment figures during the early stage of the child’s development. The problematic mother-child relationships observed help showing how the role-training function held by the mother tends to perpetuate negative tendencies when the maternal figure acts in abusive ways, damaging children’s psyche and affecting their ability to love and be loved. The only positive note left by the epilogue is that it is possible to learn how to be mothered, even if the marks of the past cannot be deleted and will always influence the future, both directly and …show more content…
Both Jeanette’s mother and Adora are presented as phallic mothers, whose engulfing tendencies menace to absorb completely their daughters. They do not seem to have any genuine bond with their offspring, who are exploited to pursue their own objectives. By creating a perfect instrument of God, Jeanette’s mother is willing to demonstrate the exactitude of her ideas and claim for her the girl future she could not have for herself. Adora used her children to play the role of the perfect mother and gain the respect and admiration of the Wind Gap community, trying to compensate for Joya’s detachment with strangers’ admiration. The daughters’ reaction to their mothers’ demands are profoundly different too. Jeanette manages to free herself from her mother’s oppressive control and to affirm her own subjectivity. She finds her own inner peace and can finally reconcile with her mother without being reclaimed by her. By contrast, Adora’s offspring seem unable to detoxify from their maternal figure’s influence. Amma is so obsessed by her mother’s loyalty that she decides to eliminate anyone diverting the woman’s attention towards her. Camille is able to accept herself and gives up on her cutting tendencies just when she finds in Mr. Curry and his wife a new family, which can
The dysfunctional bonds between the female characters tend to confirm the importance of having an attachment figures during the early stage of the child’s development. The problematic mother-child relationships observed help showing how the role-training function held by the mother tends to perpetuate negative tendencies when the maternal figure acts in abusive ways, damaging children’s psyche and affecting their ability to love and be loved. The only positive note left by the epilogue is that it is possible to learn how to be mothered, even if the marks of the past cannot be deleted and will always influence the future, both directly and …show more content…
Both Jeanette’s mother and Adora are presented as phallic mothers, whose engulfing tendencies menace to absorb completely their daughters. They do not seem to have any genuine bond with their offspring, who are exploited to pursue their own objectives. By creating a perfect instrument of God, Jeanette’s mother is willing to demonstrate the exactitude of her ideas and claim for her the girl future she could not have for herself. Adora used her children to play the role of the perfect mother and gain the respect and admiration of the Wind Gap community, trying to compensate for Joya’s detachment with strangers’ admiration. The daughters’ reaction to their mothers’ demands are profoundly different too. Jeanette manages to free herself from her mother’s oppressive control and to affirm her own subjectivity. She finds her own inner peace and can finally reconcile with her mother without being reclaimed by her. By contrast, Adora’s offspring seem unable to detoxify from their maternal figure’s influence. Amma is so obsessed by her mother’s loyalty that she decides to eliminate anyone diverting the woman’s attention towards her. Camille is able to accept herself and gives up on her cutting tendencies just when she finds in Mr. Curry and his wife a new family, which can