Parallels

I know that this doesn't have very much to do with the discussions we've been holding in class but I'm reading another book in my Religious Studies/English tandum that reminded me of Jamaica Kincaid's novel Lucy. The two books talk in depth about complicated mother/daughter relationships.

In Lucy, the narrator speaks honestly about her and her mother's mysterious relationship. It seems as though she loves her and yet hates her at the same time. When her and her mother share a personal moment she notes, "at that time she told me this I felt strongly how much I no longer liked even the way she spoke..." (22). It becomes clear to the the reader that her and her mother are not like each other at all and in fact Lucy appears to have an extreme distaste for her mother just because she is....well....her mother. Later in the chapter she tries to explain this distaste by saying, "I had come to feel that my mother's love for me was designed solely to make me into an echo of her; and I didn't know why, but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just and echo of someone" (36). Although the full story hasn't yet been revealed, one might assume that her mother and her have to completely separate dreams and are therefore torn apart by those dreams.

The other book I'm reading right now, is Maxine Hong Kingston's novel The Woman Warrior, and I recommend it. It's a really great book. It's written from Kingston's own view and it's about her own struggles with identify herself as a Chinese American. More narrowly it's about her relationship to her extremely Chinese mother. Throughout the novel Kingston, who grew up as a Chinese-American, fails to understand her mother's traditions and mannerisms. Because boys are more valued in China than girls her mother is always telling her that it is, "better to raise geese than girls." Conoting that geese are far more useful. Fed up with her mother's ways Kingston does everything in her power to defy her mother. She barely comes home when she's older and then explains it to her mother that, "when I'm away from here...I don't get sick. I don't go to the hospital every holiday" (108).

Like Lucy, Kingston experiences a huge gap of understanding between herself and her mother. She finds it hard to understand her. Perhaps, this lack of understanding can be seen as a difference in generation and in the dreams that come with that.