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Mamma Mia! Maternal Relationships in Five Short Stories

Jessica Haight-Angelo

ENG 352: The Short Story

Instructor: Stefani Leto

Grand Canyon University

28 February 2010

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Abstract

The role of motherhood in literature is often considered metaphorically, Frye argues, but

rarely literally. In five short stories, the maternal relationships between each tale’s respective

mothers, daughters and/or sons are held up in the light of both internal and external factors,

seeking a realistic portrayal. Through the lens of child developmental stages; gender roles; other

familial relationships; cultural factors; and authorial intent alike, the ensuing paper will put the

mother-daughter relationships in Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”; Amy Tan’s “Two

Kinds”; and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”; and the mother-son relationships in Flannery

O’Connor’s “Everything that Rises Must Converge”; and Grace Paley’s “A Conversation With

My Father” through their respective paces, seeking parallels and further understanding of each

story’s maternal roles and the women who fill and shape them.

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Mamma Mia! Maternal Relationships in Five Short Stories

As Frye explains, "Motherhood as literary metaphor has long been a cliché for the

creative process: the artist gives birth to a work of art which takes on a life of its own.

Motherhood as literary experience has only rarely existed at all, except as perceived by a

resentful or adoring son who is working through his own identity in separation from the power of

a nurturant and/or threatening past" (287). For Frye, stories such as Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here

Ironing" perfectly convey the "fusion of motherhood as both metaphor and experience ... stripped

of romantic distortion, and reinfused with the power of genuine metaphorical insight into the

problems of selfhood in the modern world" (287).

At the same time, her brush-off of tales wherein the maternal character is the main

nurturant for "a resentful or adoring son" discounts similar clichés enforced in literature

depicting mother-daughter relationships, such as Amy Tan's short story, "Two Kinds," or Alice

Walker's “Everyday Use.” In addition, a case can certainly be made for a decidedly unromantic

glimpse at selfhood in the relationship between Julian and his mother in O'Connor's "Everything

That Rises Must Converge,” or the neuroses surrounding the mother-son relationship portrayed

in Paley's "A Conversation With my Father." Contrary to Frye's pigeon-holing, honest portrayals

of motherhood are alive and well in literature, regardless of the age or gender of the children

against whom they're often pitted, or the culture and era in which they live. Such is the

implication in each of the aforementioned five short stories, all of which contain a realistic

mother-daughter or mother-son relationship at their respective cores. Furthermore, said maternal

relationships are often framed by larger social issues in each story, though the relationships

themselves parallel neatly across time and place.

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Internal Factors

Age

As Alward offers: “When the doctor cuts the umbilical cord at birth, the physical

attachment to our mothers cease. This is when psychological and emotional attachments begin.”

All of the aforementioned mother-daughter and mother-son relationships can be compared

against a glut of interpersonal factors, including age, gender and the mother (and child’s) other

familial connections. In this vein, Frye’s concept of “selfhood” (287) seems to have different

connotations depending on the age of the child in each story. In and of itself, selfhood is "The

state of having a distinct identity" or "individuality"; "The fully developed self" (Answers Web

site). David Rankin parallels the term to "self-centeredness", offering that "'the cult of selfhood

... became fashionable in the 1960s'" (Answers Web site). Psychoanalytical theorist Erik

Erikson's eight stages of development further piece together the concept of selfhood.

According to Erikson, by "middle childhood,” the healthy child will have effectively

battled "'basic trust versus mistrust'"; "'autonomy versus shame and doubt'"; "'initiative versus

guilt'"; and "'industry versus inferiority'" (Internet FAQ Archives). As Alward explains:

Infants who have a deep bonding with their mothers become very independent at

a young age. This bond also boosts their self-esteem. It is the most important part

of a child’s life. Even when their lives are unstable, the bonding process enables

them to be self-reliant and enjoy relationships with peers. These children are also

more successful in school, especially in mathematics. Bonding creates within the

child a sense of confidence and a positive attitude. This influences both

attendance and achievement.

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Naturally, the lack of motherly bonding results in highly negative emotional effects: “Those

children lacking a secure bond are more likely to be antisocial, withdrawn, hostile, and

aggressive” (Alward). A distinct lack of mother-infant bonding can be seen in the relationship

between Emily and her mother in Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing.” As Frye observes, the story,

from the mother's reluctant point of view as she is called upon by a well-meaning social worker

to explain her daughter's general awkwardness, constructs "an image of the stressful growth of

[Emily] from infancy through a troubled, lonely childhood, an alienating relationship to school

and friends, and an unsettled adolescence" (288). Emily’s mother is wearily defensive of the

implication that she is to blame for Emily’s “need[ing] help” (Olsen 1053): “Even if I came,

what good would it do?” she asks the social worker. “You think because I am her mother I have

a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. There is

all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me” (Olsen 1053).

Detachedly, Emily’s mother paints a picture of her relationship with her eldest daughter,

beginning when she herself was nineteen: “It was pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression”

(Olsen 1053), she explains, her brush strokes already glum. Frye notes: “The narrative structure

creates a powerful sense of immediacy and an unfamiliar literary experience” (288). There is

little doubt in the reader’s mind that Emily’s mother loves her, but she was “young” and

“distracted” through most of her daughter’s growing pains, for which she must constantly endure

the realization that “My wisdom came too late” (Olsen 1058) to have a positive influence.

Emily’s mother is proud of having nursed her daughter (“They feel that’s important nowadays, I

nursed all the children, but with her, with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, I did like the

books then said” [Olsen 1053]), and similarly heartbroken when Emily’s “clogged weeping”

(Olsen 1054), which occurs whenever she must leave her daughter to work outside the home

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becomes the even darker reality that she cannot take care of Emily properly. “They persuaded me

at the clinic to send her away to a convalescent home in the country where ‘she can have the kind

of food and care you can’t manage for her’,” Olsen writes (1055). It is likely here where Emily

learns her place, behind an “invisible wall” (Olsen 1055), disengaged from her mother’s latent

affections. By the time they are together again, the “terrible, growing years” (Olsen 1057) ensure

that their relationship will forever be strained: “She was a child seldom smiled at … of anxious,

not proud, love. We were poor and could not afford for her the soil of easy growth … There were

years she did not want me to touch her. She kept too much in herself, her life was such she had to

keep too much in herself … She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear” (Olsen

1058). In essence, Emily is a textbook illustration of Erikson’s developmental admonishments,

right down to the foreshadowing about her educational prowess: “She was not glib or quick in a

world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn” (Olsen 1056).

Though not as outwardly neglected as Emily, Mrs. Johnson’s daughter Maggie in Alice

Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use” is nonetheless easily paralleled with the eldest daughter in

“Ironing”. Maggie lives with her mother (colloquially referred to as Mama) in a cheap house that

holds little emotional value for either character: “I have deliberately turned my back on the

house” (Walker 1308) Mama offers, and then compares it to the Johnson’s previous home which

burned to the ground “Ten, twelve years” (Walker 1307) ago: “This house is in a pasture, too,

like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down” (Walker 1308). Dee

is Mama’s eldest daughter, with whom she has the exact opposite relationship as that between

her mother and Maggie. “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure” (Olsen

1307) Mama recounts as the two “wait for [Dee] in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and

wavy yesterday afternoon” (Olsen 1306). Curiously, Mama takes pride in the simplistic beauty

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of the yard with its “tiny, irregular grooves” and “breezes that never come inside the house”

(Olsen 1306). It is unlikely that Dee will appreciate or even notice the small pleasure that her

mother takes in keeping the yard up, in the same way that her ability to “kill and clean a hog as

mercilessly as a man” (Olsen 1306) would likely not be appreciated. It is too coarse, too

unrefined for the likes of Mama’s eldest daughter.

In contrast, Maggie is simple like her mother, scarred both literally by the fire that

claimed the first Johnson home, and figuratively, as Mama is, by Dee’s attempts to bestow upon

them “a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know” (Olsen 1307). Like Emily,

Maggie “knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by” (Olsen

1307), Mama affirms. Whereas Emily’s mother offers defensively that Emily is “lovely” and will

“find her way” eventually (Olsen 1058), Mama is less doting in her observance of Maggie,

characterizing her as “homely and ashamed” (Olsen 1306) when confronted with her sister, and

observing her movements as those of a “lame animal” who “sidle[s] up to someone who is

ignorant enough to be kind to him” (Olsen 1307). Of Maggie’s future, Mama offers that “She

will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I’ll be free to sit here

and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could

carry a tune” (Olsen 1307). The consideration of Maggie’s future marriage becomes more

pressing when Mama learns the true nature of Dee’s visit: The procurement of some “‘old

quilts’” (Olsen 1310) that Dee is nonetheless scandalized to learn that Mama will not let her take:

“‘The truth is,’ I said, ‘I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John

Thomas’ … I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee a quilt when she went away to

college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style” (Olsen 1311). Collectively

accused of not understanding their “‘heritage’” (Olsen 1312), Mama and Maggie are abandoned

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once more by Dee to the comfort of their neat yard and “‘the way [they] live’” (Olsen 1312),

outlined for the reader as painstakingly irrelevant to the way that Dee lives.

The nine-year-old narrator of Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” is yet another contender for

Erikson’s developmental octagon. The most notable difference between Jing-Mei (later called

June in the novel-length expansion of the story, The Joy Luck Club) and both Maggie and Emily

is that June is horrified that her mother won’t leave her alone. Obsessed with the notion of her

only child becoming a prodigy, June, too, initially buys into the idea that unearthing the hidden

talent that must exist will make her “perfect. My mother and father would adore me. I would be

beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk for anything” (Tan 1222). Eventually,

however, her mother’s dogged persistence that June becomes a “remarkable child” (Tan 1223)

takes its toll. Notably, like Maggie and Emily, Tan’s narrator is painfully average in terms of

physical or academic abilities. When her mother decides that she will become the next Chinese

Shirley Temple (incidentally, a comparison that Olsen’s narrator also makes in “Ironing”) by

becoming a piano prodigy, June goes out of the way not to “give myself a fair chance … I was so

determined not to try, not to be anybody different that I learned to play only the most ear-

splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns” (Tan 1225-6).

After likewise botching a public performance of Schumann’s “Pleading Child”, the

tension between June and her mother comes to a head: “‘Only two kinds of daughters,’ she

shouted in Chinese. ‘Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one

kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!’” (Tan 1228). Though Tan’s narrator

is not neglected by her mother, she yearns for affection the way lonely children like Maggie and

Emily do that she does not receive. Rather, said affection comes bundled inside the prickly

notion that she will never be a good enough daughter. Indeed, the “struggle at the piano” is “not

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the only incident my mother felt in me,” June recounts, now an adult. “In the years that followed,

I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of

expectations. I didn’t get straight As. I didn’t become class president. I didn’t get into Stanford. I

dropped out of college. For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to

be. I could only be me” (Tan 1229). Like Emily’s mother and Mrs. Johnson, Tan’s tale is

grounded in the reality of imperfect people who are beaten down by the “hope … for something

so large that failure was inevitable” (Tan 1229). It is unclear in the ambiguous conclusions of

both “Ironing” and “Everyday Use” whether Maggie or Emily will become, like June, “Perfectly

Contented” with their lots in life. Even so, such a feat has taken June more than 30 years to

achieve.

In Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” the college-graduated

Julian is significantly older than his counterparts in Tan’s, Walker’s or Olsen’s short stories;

likewise, the relationship he has with his mother is one rooted in mutual adulthood that

nonetheless poses its own challenges. Similarly, Grace Paley showcases the present-day

relationship with her own father as a framework for another adult, mother-son relationship in “A

Conversation With My Father.” In both instances, as well as in the relationship between Dee and

Mrs. Johnson in “Everyday Use,” the later stages of Erikson’s child development theory provide

a framework with which to evaluate each parent-child bond.

In stage five of Erikson's theory, the self-seeking teenager grapples with “'identity versus

role confusion',” which can result in alienation of others due to "immature behavior and

reasoning" (Internet FAQ Archives). Simultaneously, Erikson notes, it is "imperative" at this

stage for the young adult to "figure out their likes and dislikes, talents and natural inclinations,

and to try new things ... so that they will develop a sense of identity" (Internet FAQ Archives).

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By stage six, the burgeoning adult begins to seek "deep, meaningful, intimate relationships" that

align with these aforementioned preferences. By stage seven, the now-adult will begin to feel the

effects of stagnation ("not changing or growing"), if they have not made positive connections or

choices. By stage eight, the adult evaluates "whether they have accomplished something with

their lives and choices and whether they have contributed to the betterment of society" (Internet

FAQ Archives).

Dee has well proven her ability to have meaningful adult relationships with persons other

than her mother. Though her female friendships only ever extended vaguely into the territory of

“Nervous girls who never laughed” (Walker 1308), Dee was known early on to impress boys

with her “well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye”

(Walker 1308). Nonetheless, Mama’s criticism of Dee’s “faultfinding power” (Walker 1308)

implies her daughter’s high standards, which her behavior during “Everyday Use” outlines in

greater detail. Indeed, when she arrives at the house, she is accompanied not by one of the awe-

inspired boys whom she likely befriended to distance herself from her bourgeois home life, but

by a fellow political mover-and-shaker with whom she seems to feel a kinship. “The short stocky

fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with ‘Asalamalakim, my

mother and sister!’” (Walker 1308). While Dee has made herself comfortable alongside “Hakim-

a-barber”, acknowledging that they are on the same side of the fight against a common oppressor

(the mainstream White culture), and announcing that she has changed her name to “‘Wangero

Leewanika Kemanjo’” (Walker 1309) as a physical expression of that fight, Mama recognizes

few similarities between herself and Hakim-a-barber besides pointing out that he resembles

“‘those beef-cattle peoples down the road’”; that is, fellow country folks (Walker 1309). Indeed,

she is unable to understand Hakim-a-barber’s name well enough to pronounce it correctly, and

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shifts back and forth between “Dee” and “Wangero” as it suits her. Naturally, Dee’s friend (or

husband; Mama never bothers to find out, and Dee does not offer the information) rejects his

own familial roots the same way that Dee rejects hers, downplaying their apparent connection:

“‘I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style’” (Walker 1310),

Hakim-a-barber tells Mama.

It is unlikely that Dee has moved beyond Erikson’s sixth stage of development. She does

not yet show a maturity or awareness of her own stagnation, though one wonders whether her

mother’s refusal to allow her to stake her claim on the family belongings of a family with which

she no longer associates herself will be the precipice from which deep self-reflection may

eventually spring. At present, Dee’s sense of self-identity is strong, though it is devoid of respect

for her mother and younger sister, who are collectively useful to her only when they are

something quaint that she can possess and control. Conversely, both Mama and Maggie regard

Dee with a sort of shy awe. Mama believes that Dee would like her better if she were “a hundred

pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake,” someone who could match a “gray,

sporty man like Johnny Carson” with a “quick and witty tongue” (Walker 1306). Mama

categorizes herself and Maggie as “dimwits” (Walker 1307) compared to Dee, and seems to

regard her eldest daughter almost as a goddess: “Her feet were always neat-looking, as if God

himself had shaped them with a certain style” (Walker 1308) Mama offers, barely able to shield

her eyes from the brightness of Dee’s yellow and orange dress against the sun; her gold jewelry,

starkly contrasted with her daughter’s “black as night” hair (Walker 1308). Mama’s

characterization of Dee as someone who “has held life always in the palm of one hand;” a person

to whom “‘no’ is a word the world never learned to say” (Walker 1306) proves apt. Indeed, her

refusal of the “‘priceless’” (Walker 1311) quilts to her eldest daughter marks the end of Dee’s

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pleasantries; where initially Dee is facetiously “delighted” (Walker 1310) by everything the

humble Johnson home has to offer, it quickly outwears its usefulness once there is nothing more

in it for her to take. Similarly, Mama correctly identifies Maggie’s reaction to her sister’s

tantrum as “something like fear,” but not anger: “This was Maggie’s portion. This was the way

she knew God to work” (Walker 1311). Though Dee rejects her family, Mama does not reject

her; at the same time, she will not wait for “Miss Wangero” (Walker 1311) to come around

anymore. Paradoxically, by putting Dee in her place and championing Maggie, Mama seems to

emulate her eldest daughter, in order to protect the younger one. Both Mama and Maggie

noticeably grow as characters by the end of the story; for Dee to do the same in the future, she

will need to “negotiate the old by casting [her] lot with the new” (Tornsey 1559).

Like Dee, Julian is a college-educated young adult who prides himself on being a well-

rounded person, particularly in the face of his mother’s old-fashioned ways. Unlike Dee,

O’Connor tells the story of Julian and his mother from the prodigal son’s point of view. To

Julian, he and his mother have little in common: “The further irony of all this was that in spite of

her, he had turned out so well. In spite of going to only a third-rate college, he had, on his own

initiative, come out with a first-rate education; in spite of growing up dominated by a small

mind, he had ended up with a large one; in spite of all her foolish views, he was free of prejudice

and unafraid to face facts” (O’Connor 1009-1010). Julian’s mother’s prejudices are racial; set in

the deep South in the midst of the African-American civil rights movement, she is hardly the

only person to feel that “‘the bottom rail is on the top’” (O’Connor 1006); that their Black

neighbors should “‘rise … on their own side of the fence’” (O’Connor 1007). In spite of this,

Julian’s mother is a catch-all for all of Julian’s idealistic disgust, even if he readily admits that

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she is more “a little girl that he had to take to town” (O’Connor 1005) than someone going out of

her way to cause harm to anyone, Black or otherwise.

Ironically, both characters suffer one another with the same sort of beleaguered

“martyrdom” (O’Connor 1006). While Julian acts put-upon to “make himself completely numb

during the time he would be sacrificed to [his mother’s] pleasure” (O’Connor 1005), his mother

complains about her diminished surroundings, but simultaneously “enjoy[s] the struggle” to give

her son “everything she thought a Chestny ought to have” (O’Connor 1009). For Julian’s mother,

being “adjustable” and “gracious” (O’Connor 1006-7) are signs of a dignified upbringing, one

she nonetheless was not afforded due to “‘reduced circumstances’” (O’Connor 1007). To her,

having Chestny and Godhigh (a symbolically powerful name) in the bloodline is everything.

Conversely, Julian goes out of his way to reject all aspects of his ancestry, though he sometimes

fails at eradicating it completely: “He never spoke of it without contempt or thought of it without

longing,” O’Connor writes, describing the old Godhigh-Chestny mansion, now gutted and

occupied by “Negroes” (O’Connor 1007), one of many examples of “threadbare elegance”

(O’Connor 1007) that is all that remains of his mother’s “banner of imaginary dignity”

(O’Connor 1008). Indeed, everything about Julian and his mother’s life is “reduced,” right down

to the “slimming class” that the latter must take in order to get her blood pressure under control

(O’Connor 1005). The theme of Julian’s mother gradually losing her composure, falling from

grace is strong throughout the story. Similarly, Julian is unhappily stagnant. At the age of 25, he

is “as disenchanted with [the world] as a man of fifty” (O’Connor 1009), a college graduate who

sells typewriters while hoping (but not with very much hope) for his writing career to take off.

Neither character lives entirely in the real world; at the same time, Julian is better prepared for

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society’s tentative evolution towards racial equality, something his mother would rather (and

does) die than concede.

Neither Paley and her father, nor the hypothetical mother-son tale that she dishes out to

appease her dad in “A Conversation With My Father” seem preoccupied with racial tension. In

spite of this, both parent-child relationships parallel with Dee-and-Mrs. Johnson and Julian and

his mother. The unnamed mother and son’s story begins as a handful of vaguely scribbled facts:

The son becomes a drug addict as a teenager, which the mother latches onto herself in an attempt

to be “part of the youth culture, with which she felt very much at home” (Paley 1081). As the

author writes: “After a while, for a number of reasons, the boy gave it all up and left the city and

his mother in disgust. Hopeless and alone, she grieved” (Paley 1081). Bookending the saga is

Paley and her elderly father’s own relationship, the latter who dislikes his writer daughter’s

postmodern leanings, and cajoles her to tell him “‘a simple story … the kind de Maupassant

wrote, or Chekhov’” (Paley 1081). Though “Conversation” in and of itself is almost defensively

written in a postmodern style, the sparse dialogue between father and daughter provides at least

as good of an insight into their relationship as a more straightforward style might. Of the story,

which Paley admits is autobiographical, she offers that she was “‘just trying to oblige [her

father],” and that they were very close (Charters 1526). Beyond authorial intent, the fact that

Paley does concede to her father’s wishes and attempts to re-tell her story to his liking shows that

she cares for him, at least as well as Paley telling the reader that this is the case does.

Paley herself aside, the boy and his mother, whom she admits are styled after her

neighbors across the street, are similar in their interactions and co-dependency as Dee and Julian

are to their own mothers. Unlike Maggie or Emily, the son’s “helpless chubby infancy” and

ensuing childhood are strengthened rather than weakened by obvious maternal affection (Paley

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1082). Though the boy becomes a junkie in the “fist of adolescence” he is also a “hopeful …

ideologue and successful converter” (Paley 1082). Like Dee, he attracts fellow intellectuals to his

cause, albeit a less savory one than fighting for equality. He also attracts his mother, whose draw

towards the youth culture, rather than to “her own generation” (Paley 1083) is her biggest flaw.

Whereas Dee and Julian act out against their mothers, craving understanding, Paley’s teenage

boy receives unabashed maternal affection and, like June in “Two Kinds” lashes out against it.

Like Dee, the boy’s natural ability to draw a crowd leads him to greener pastures than his

mother’s full- fledged addiction; namely, the boy meets a girl who, ironically, plays the role of

the disapproving parent when his mother fails to do so, and moves “to the bushy edge of another

borough” (Paley 1083) with her. Whereas Julian is the pinnacle of Erikson’s fabled stagnation,

both Dee and Paley’s boy burn brightly, even at the cost of the maternal connection that

nonetheless brought them into the world. All three characters reject their respective mothers;

Paley, at least, attempts to admit that her father correctly accuses her of not “look[ing] things in

the face” (Paley 1084), for which the only cure is self-awareness. Whether Dee, Julian, or the

boy will come around remains unknown, an acknowledgment that Paley’s father would term a

postmodern “tragedy” (Paley 1084).

Gender

Beyond age, the gender of the child in each respective maternal relationship is another

notable interpersonal factor. Frye does not explain her distinction between the mother-son and

mother-daughter relationship, only that sons particularly run the risk of being too “resentful or

adoring” (287), with unhealthy results. However, parallels across gender lines in these “trans-

generational entanglements” (Carruthers) can be easily observed.

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Maggie and Dee in “Everyday Use,” as well as June in “Two Kinds” and Emily in “I

Stand Here Ironing” find themselves in what Carruthers characterizes as typically problematic

mother-daughter relationships. "A mother may say that she wishes her daughters happiness, yet

from a daughter's point of view - she acts quite opposite," Carruthers offers. "A daughter may

feel criticized for her choices, for example in education, career, boyfriends and partners."

Conversely, the mother "may feel blamed by her daughter for everything that happens with the

daughter's education, career, boyfriends and partners" (Carruthers). In essence, the two may

regard the same incident in opposite ways. For Dee and Mrs. Johnson, this may be Dee’s regard

for “heritage” versus her mother’s feeling that Dee does not care about her family. For June in

“Two Kinds,” the botched piano recital performance is both an incident and a metaphor that

shapes her maternal relationship; it is a marker of June’s perceived inadequacy in her mother’s

eyes. In response, June lashes out, delighted when her mother starts “to give up hope” (Tan

1224) that her daughter will ever become a prodigy.

Emily and Maggie’s mothers’ neglect is more palpable than any arguments that they may

have had. As Caruthers notes, "Few parents intend to abandon, abuse or neglect their children.

Most mothers have good intentions and nurture and protect their children through childhood." At

the same time, however, "Mothers may advise their daughters to be realistic by preparing for

unfulfilling lives” (Caruthers). Such advice is notable in the relationship between Mrs. Johnson

and Maggie, the latter who seems pre-judged as useless and unimportant, to some degree, by

both her mother and her older sister. Maggie understands her lot in life; she is willing to give up

the precious quilts without a fight to Dee who decides that they “already belonged to her”

(Walker 1311), anticipating their value as wall decorations in the eyes of her new family.

Maggie’s subservience; the way that she hides from dubious company and scuffs her toe makes

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Mama’s championing of her at the end of the story all the more heartening: “I did something I

never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the

quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them back into Maggie’s lap. Maggie just sat

there on my bed with her mouth open” (Walker 1311). Later, Maggie smiles a rare, “real smile”

(Walker 1312), the status quo changed. It is indeed a “new day” for her and her mother, albeit

unlike anything that Dee has in mind.

Emily is similarly subservient towards her mother: “never a direct protest, never

rebellion,” Olsen writes (1054), characterizing the mother with small, occasional outbursts of

guilt or, at least, displaced emotion: “What in me demanded that goodness in her? And what was

the cost, the cost to her of such goodness?” (Olsen 1054), she asks. Like Maggie, Emily suffers

quietly while others take the spotlight; in Emily’s case, these are the four small children who

come after her, whose presence demand that Emily becomes “a mother, and housekeeper, and

shopper” (Olsen 1057). Thus, Emily never achieves her own identity, though she seeks it in

bursts of growth and success at comedy (mime), which her mother nonetheless knows she will

not be able to afford seeing through to its fullest extent. Frye offers: "a human being cannot rely

on the perpetual presence of external seeing eyes to validate her own authenticity as a separate

self. Emily, feeling her isolation, and Emily's mother, feeling helpless to overcome her daughter's

painful alienation, together give us a powerful lens on the vulnerability to external perceptions of

selfhood" (Frye 289), one from which Emily will never be fully exonerated from, even with her

successful "command ... convulsing and deadly clowning" (Olsen 1058) as a comedian. Emily

will always be seeking acceptance, always looking for "Shoogily", her own made-up word for

"comfort" (Olsen 1057). Her success on stage, however, will never fully substitute for "the

unpreparedness, stammering and unsure" relationship that she has with her mother. Thus, even

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when she is "Somebody", Emily is "as imprisoned in her difference as she had been in

anonymity" (Olsen 1057). To her mother, Emily will always be something of a stranger, "rare

and precious" (Olsen 1058), but ultimately unattainable. The best gift her mother can offer her

then is not belatedly fostered maternal love, but the knowledge that "she is more than this dress

on the ironing board, helpless before the iron" (Olsen 1058). As Frye offers, the metaphor of the

iron and the "rhythm of the ironing" that Emily's mother acquiesces to throughout the majority of

the narrative together "establish a tightly coherent framework for the ... probing of a mother-

daughter relationship" (292) without trivializing or romanticizing it.

Lost or buried identity is a common theme in the mother-daughter bond, according to

Carruthers: “The daughter may fight to establish and protect her own identity - or the daughter

may lose identity and identify with her mother ... Most daughters want assurance that they are

loved for who they are - not for what they may do, who they may become or who they may

marry.” In addition, “A mother may try to motivate her daughter to fulfill her own

unaccomplished goals, and she may immerse herself into her daughter's life” (Carruthers). Such

characterization strongly applies to the women in “Two Kinds,” as June struggles to create an

identity outside of her mother’s expectations, while still yearning for her love. Though June’s

mother appears almost comically tyrannical at times, small hints indicate that she does, in fact,

care for her daughter very deeply. “My mother slapped me. ‘Who ask you be genius?’ she

shouted. ‘Only ask you be your best. For you sake. You think I want you be genius? Hnnh! What

for! Who ask you!’” (Tan 1225). Unlike Olsen’s narrator, who is emotionally incapable of

admitting affection to her daughter (though the reader is assured that it is there), June is flat-out

told that she is loved. At the same time, the message is relayed through shouting and a slap

across the face, a rather mixed signal. Still, Tan’s story remains the most undeniably hopeful; not

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only does she gain independence (as Carruthers correctly estimates, around 30 years of age), but

also seemingly accord with her mother, her long-time enemy.

In contrast to the mother-daughter bond, Carruthers identifies the largest issue between

mothers and sons as “emotional incest,” in which the son becomes the mother's "Little Prince."

Such a relationship potentially forms, Carruthers offers, if the mother acts "irresponsible,

childish, or [does] not provide mature guidance" to her son. Often, the mother's life is "dedicated

... to her son", forming a codependency that can cause the son to "attack (become a compulsive

bully) or withdraw (become an obsessive nerd)" (Carruthers). For the "intellectual" son, this may

lead to difficulty in "maintain[ing] a happy partnership" outside of his maternal relationship. In

addition, Carruthers says, "The consequences include the burned-out shells of real boys who

gave up - who lost themselves to mediocrity or to drugs." Naturally, in order to achieve

"emotional freedom," the Little Prince must successfully acquire "emotional maturity" and break

free from his mother-son entanglement (Carruthers). Curiously, Carruthers identifies the son’s

inability to “hide [his] intellect and delay [his] maturity,” which he claims that daughters are

more apt to do. Like Frye, however, he does not offer any further rationale for why the behavior

is common in one gender and not the other.

In a nutshell, O’Connor’s characterization of Julian best adheres to Carruthers’ proposed

notion of the withdrawn, “obsessive nerd,” whereas Paley’s unnamed teenage boy is the

“compulsive bully.” Likewise, both young men are “burned-out shells of real boys who gave

up,” though Julian succumbs to mediocrity while the boy in Paley’s story attaches himself to

drugs. Perhaps it is because of both young men’s inability to hide their intelligence or maturity

that their maternal relationships are similarly categorized by each son breaking away from his

mother, no longer needing them. Whereas the daughters typically portray an ambiguity in how

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much they both loathe their mothers, yet crave their acceptance, neither Julian nor Paley’s boy

seem upset by the status quo with their own mothers. In essence, both boys (men) call the shots

in their respective maternal relationships, allowing them the choice to adhere to or discard their

mothers at will. Julian even brags about such ability: “Most miraculous of all, instead of being

blinded by love for her as she was for him, he had cut himself emotionally free of her and could

see her with complete objectivity. He was not dominated by his mother” (O’Connor 1010).

At the same time, Julian’s mother relies on him, her Little Prince of whom she is

unwaveringly proud, in spite of “his gloominess” and radical idealism in lieu of “practical

experience” (O’Connor 1009). Indeed, his mother supports him while he struggles to find his

place in a world that he can barely stand. Not only that, but she suffers to provide for him, albeit

arguably enjoys the struggle, feeling that it makes her worthy of her proper upbringing. At the

same time, Julian is easily irritated by his mother’s kindness: “Julian thought he could have stood

his lot better if she had been selfish, if she had been an old hag who drank and screamed at him

… Everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him” (O’Connor 1005-6). To the

diminished Lady Chestny, acting gracious is a virtue; to Julian, it is an irritating game that his

mother plays: “She lived according to the laws of her own fantasy world, outside of which he

had never seen her step foot” (O’Connor 1009). Unsurprisingly, once Julian makes the decision

that “There was no reason for her to think she could always depend on him” (O’Connor 1011),

the relationship becomes irrevocably damaged.

For Paley’s teenage boy and his mother, the son unequivocally calls the shots. He does

not ask his mother for permission to use drugs, nor does Paley characterize him as particularly

interested in his mother even when she invites herself into his youth culture. In essence, his

mother becomes his peer: “Although she was often high herself, certain good mothering reflexes

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remained, and she saw to it that there was lots of orange juice around and honey and milk and

vitamin pills. However, she never cooked anything but chili, and that no more than once a week”

(Paley 1083). Neither her son nor her neighbors regard her absolutely as a fellow youth or as a

proper mother, however, which seems to set up the son’s decision to abandon her for a

“proselytizing girl” who scolds him for his drug use and poor eating habits (Paley 1083). As

previously mentioned, she adopts a maternal bond with the boy, one which his mother fails to

fully accept upon her own shoulders. For Julian, there is no saving grace, no scolding girlfriend

or Hakim-a-barber to accompany him home. At one point, O’Connor observes, “he had never

been successful at making any Negro friends” (1011), an acquaintanceship that he fantasizes will

put his mother’s outdated racism in its place. Similarly, Julian toys with the idea of hiring a

Black doctor for his mother, and even the “ultimate horror”: Bringing home a “Negroid woman”

as a romantic partner (O’Connor 1011). Alas, as Carruthers hypothesizes, Julian is unable to

successfully find for himself a fulfilling relationship. There is only his mother, much to his

despair.

The mother in Paley’s story has never been her son’s main consideration; she is merely

one of the hangers-on to his feats of drug-addled genius, epitomized by his contributions to a

periodical called Oh! Golden Horse! (Paley 1082). Like Dee with her noisy bracelets and book

knowledge and new name, the boy is a golden child whose mother is devastated by his absence

and subsequent rejection of her. “The boy and his girl … were very strict. They said they would

not see [the boy’s mother] again until she had been off drugs for sixty days” (Paley 1083), the

author writes. For the son, the lack of a mother is supplemented by alternative and perhaps even

greater things; there is no need for Paley to hastily convince her father that his life is not tragic.

Conversely, even the mother’s potential success as a pharmacy receptionist is related to her

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previous glory years spent in her son’s shadow, where she is no longer worthy to remain in his

eyes. As Paley’s father notes, “‘She will slide back. A person must have character. She does

not’” (1084). Regardless of whether his prediction comes true, it pales in comparison to the

notion that the mother only ever exists because of or in spite of her son. He is everything to her;

sadly, to him, she is insignificant.

Once again, it is prudent to mention Paley’s own fictionalized depiction of her own

father-daughter relationship in “Conversation,” as it relates to Carruthers’ notions of gender-

based maternal conflicts. Ideally, one would find shades of what Carruthers terms the “Daddy’s

Little Princess” archetype, characterized by mother-daughter tensions as a result of the

daughter’s emotional compatibility or championing of the father. Like the father in a mother-son

relationship, the mother observing such a father-daughter bond presumably feels slighted by the

father’s lack of attention to her, just as the father feels slighted by an emotionally awkward

mother-son relationship. To apply this to Paley, one must obtain context regarding her own

maternal relationship, of which “Conversation” provides very little. Notably, Paley offers that “I

had promised the family to always let [my father] have the last word when arguing, but in this

case I had a different responsibility. That woman lives across the street. She’s my knowledge and

my invention” (1084). To Paley, her mother is only one member of the rest of her family, whose

opinions extend only to not riling her ailing father up on what is likely his death bed. Naturally,

the implication is that Paley’s mother regards any additional detail – the worth of her daughter’s

writing, for example – as unimportant, at least in the singular vein of Paley’s short story.

At the same time, Paley champions the mother in the story that she creates for her

father’s entertainment and criticism, even acknowledging that she is based on the mother-son

drama playing out across the street. The same level of inference, ergo, can apply to the barely

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explored mother-daughter relationship in Paley’s own life: The mother in her story is “‘born in a

time of fools, to live among the fools’” (1084), for which the author pities her: “I’m not going to

leave her there in that house crying. (Actually, neither would Life, which unlike me has no pity)”

(1084). Though fascinating to presume that Paley potentially has her own maternal issues, it is

mere speculation beyond wondering if there are any parallels between her mother and son

characters and her own mother. In that sense, only the author knows, and she’s chosen to keep

such knowledge to herself.

Other Familial Relationships

Yet another interpersonal thread that ties the maternal relationships in each story together

are the mother and child’s respective relationships with other family members. It is prudent to

consider the strength and validity of each mother’s romantic adult relationships, as much as it is

important to observe instances of sibling rivalry amongst her children, where applicable.

More often than not, the mother-daughter and mother-son relationships in the

aforementioned stories are presented as single-parent functions. Neither Mama in “Everyday

Use” nor Julian’s mother in “Everything That Rises Must Converge” mentions a father figure in

the course of either story. Similarly, Paley’s mother and son characters are devoid of any

paternal interaction. Conversely, though fathers are mentioned in “Two Kinds” and “I Stand

Here Ironing,” their roles are minimal. In “I Stand Here Ironing,” Emily’s father is explained

away quickly, mentioned only in relation to the “good-bye note” that he leaves, stating that he

“‘could no longer endure … sharing want with us’” (Olsen 1053). Later, Olsen’s narrator has

children after Emily, presumably with another man, but he is never mentioned or described, let

alone shown interacting with the children that he helped to create. Interestingly, before Emily is

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sent to the children’s home in the midst of her mother’s Great Depression-era struggles, she lives

for a short time with her father: “When she finally came, I hardly knew her, walking quick and

nervous like her father, looking like her father, thin, and dressed in a shoddy red that yellowed

her skin and glared at the pockmarks. All the baby loveliness gone” (Olsen 1054). Though Paley

does not appear to fit the Daddy’s Little Princess archetype, a case can be made that Emily’s

mother finds her daughter to be a stand-in for her absent husband, for which Emily is (probably

subconsciously) blamed, in the vein of Carruthers’ father-daughter postulating. Olsen also

implicitly states in an interview that the mother character does not particularly lack anything in

spite of not having a dutiful husband; indeed, “Ironing” is “autobiographical” (Charters 1052) in

that Olsen too is left by her own husband to raise her first child alone. Of her own predicament

and her narrator’s, Olsen defensively offers that she feels “no personal guilt as a single working

parent over her daughter’s predicament … since ‘guilt is a word used far too sloppily, to cover

up harmful situations in society that must be changed’” (Charters 1052). Frye adds: Olsen is not

in the business of “guilty self-laceration. Rather she is searching for an honest assessment of past

behavior and its consequences and for an accurate understanding of the role of cultural necessity

which nonetheless allows for individual responsibility” (290). Still, Emily’s mother is not Emily;

though the mother can justify her husband’s absence with the rationale that “She had a new

daddy now to learn to love” (Olsen 1054), it does not mean that Emily does not, or will not

blame her mother for her own father’s absence in the future.

As Carruthers offers, even family therapists often fail to treat the father as an “equal

parent” to the mother, one “whose involvement is needed by their families”. Thus, fathers may

feel “demeaned” and “devalued” in their respective family relationships (Carruthers). It is

unclear whether June’s father in “Two Kinds” feels emotionally slighted; like Paley’s

Haight-Angelo 25

unexplained relationship with her mother, the story’s narration only hints at subtleties that

doubtlessly exist somewhere. On one hand, June’s father is a uniquely notable presence in the

story. At the same time, he is hardly the primary caregiver for June. He does not noticeably take

part in any decision-making about his daughter’s well-being; June’s mother wishes for her to

take piano lessons, and so she does, even if it’s “Our family” (Tan 1224) that can’t afford the

expense. June’s father’s influence is implied, but June, as a child, never sees it in play. Similarly,

her father attends his daughter’s doomed piano recital, but his only contributions are yawning at

the stiffness of the event, and “humming the busy-bee tune” (Tan 1227) that the winner of the

recital played on his violin. Unlike June’s mother, her father is not committed to judging his

daughter’s worth through her achievements; he does not champion either wife or daughter, and

exists merely as silent observer to their drama. In this sense, June seems both to silently respect

her father, and to regard him less as an authority figure and more as a confidante. Like Paley and

her father, June’s paternal relationship appears to be based on mutual respect, rather than the

push-pull of achievement-failure that defines many of the interactions between herself and her

mother. After her mother dies, June even helps to “get … things in order for [her] father, a little

at a time” (Tan 1229) by organizing remnants of her mother’s life as she feels that they are

relevant. In essence, this is her job, whether an obedient, successful daughter or free-thinking

failure; not her father’s.

The sibling conflicts in each short story are the final interpersonal factor that one should

consider in the context of maternal relationships. Neither Julian in “Everything That Rises Must

Converge” nor Paley or her mother and son characters have siblings – potentially, the ‘other’

members of Paley’s family includes brothers and/or sisters, but they are even less notable in “A

Conversation With My Father” than Paley’s own mother-daughter relationship. Similarly, Olsen

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never shows Emily interacting with any of her younger siblings in “Ironing,” though her mother

observes and comments on their relationship:

Oh there were conflicts between the others too, each one human, needing,

demanding, hurting, taking – but only between Emily and Susan, no, Susan

toward Emily that corroding resentment. It seems so obvious on the surface, yet it

is not obvious; Susan, the second child, Susan, golden- and curly-haired and

chubby, quick and articulate and assured, everything in appearance and manner

Emily was not; Susan, not able to resist Emily’s precious things, losing or

sometimes clumsily breaking them; Susan telling jokes and riddles to company

for applause while Emily sat silent (to say to me later: that was my riddle, Mother,

I told it to Susan); Susan, who for all the five years’ difference in age was just a

year behind Emily in developing physically. (Olsen 1056-7)

Frye’s analysis of the Emily-Susan connection is also notable: “When [Olsen] defines the

hostilities between Emily and her sister Susan - 'that terrible balancing of hurts and needs' (Olsen

16; cited by Frye 288) - she asserts her own recognition not only of an extreme sibling rivalry but

also of the inevitable conflict in the separate self-definitions of parent and child” (Frye 288).

From Olsen’s narrator’s perspective, Susan was the easier child to love, both circumstantially

and in a comparison of her two eldest children’s traits. Likewise, Susan does not remind her

mother of Emily’s wayward father, and thus does not suffer from her mother’s defensive

brusqueness the way Emily seems to merely for looking or acting like him.

In the same vein, though Maggie does not notably remind her mother of her and Dee’s

own wayward father in “Everyday Use,” she is similarly regarded as the Emily to her sister

Haight-Angelo 27

Dee’s Susan, birth order aside. Where Dee is boisterous and entitled, Maggie acts “like

somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her” (Walker 1311).

Mama offers that “I used to think [Dee] hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised the

money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school” (Walker 1307). In this sense,

Maggie serves as a placeholder for all of the things that Dee can’t, or won’t be for her mother;

she will never be satisfied with her family’s humble heritage, or with slumming it alongside Mrs.

Johnson and her little sister. Similarly, Maggie regards Dee “with a mixture of envy and awe”

(Walker 1306). She is perhaps more observant and intelligent than her mother gives her credit for

being: “Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, ‘Mama, when did Dee ever have

any friends?’” (Walker 1308). Whereas Dee and her Muslim friend’s presence make Maggie

anxious, ergo, she seems to see her sister for what she really is; when Dee leaves in a huff,

donning “sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin” (Walker 1312),

Maggie merely smiles at her. Conversely, Maggie holds no everyday use to her sister. Their

relationship will remain stagnant unless or until that changes; as always, on Dee’s terms.

Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” is unique in that non-blood-related characters have very sisterly

relationships. The short story itself is a small piece of Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, which

follows not only June’s relationship with her mother, but her mother’s friendship with her own

age-mates, collectively the Joy Luck Club. In “Two Kinds” itself, June is forced into interaction

with Waverly, one of the Club member’s own daughters. “We had grown up together and shared

all the closeness of two sisters squabbling over crayons and dolls. In other words, for the most

part, we hated each other. I thought she was snotty” (Tan 1226), June offers. Compounding their

sour sisterly relationship is the fact that June’s mother and her Auntie Lindo constantly compare

notes on their daughters. Waverly, locally known as “‘Chinatown’s Littlest Chinese Chess

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Champion’” (Tan 1226) is defensive of her position as the ‘better’ daughter at several points in

the story. When June prepares for her piano recital, Waverly sits in the audience with a “sulky

expression” (Tan 1227) on her face. Later, her dismissal of June’s lack of piano playing prowess

is all too similar to June’s own struggle for acceptance from her mother: “Waverly looked at me

and shrugged her shoulders. ‘You aren’t a genius like me,’ she said matter-of-factly. And if I

hadn’t felt so bad, I would have pulled her braids and punched her stomach” (Tan 1227). Like

Emily-and-Susan and Dee-and-Maggie, June’s sibling rivalry with Waverly is directly connected

to their own respective maternal relationships. Like June, it is implied that Waverly suffers under

the same implication that she is only worth something to her mother if she measures up to an

ideal, one which characters like June, Emily and Maggie have long since given up trying to

attain.

External Factors

All of the authors of the aforementioned five short stories bring personal faith, life

experiences and opinions on the problems within their respective societies and eras to their

writing. Thus, each story acts as a barometer of the time for which it was created as much as it is

an intensely private observation of each mother’s interpersonal relationship with her child(ren).

For Amy Tan and the characters in O’Connor’s and Walker’s stories, race relations must be

taken into account; Tan, in the context of Chinese-American immigration; and O’Connor and

Walker representing respective White and Black perspectives on the African-American civil

rights movement of the mid-20th century, with O’Connor’s tale thoroughly interwoven with her

Catholic dogma. Similarly, a case can be made that Olsen’s “Ironing” is an apt assessment of

Haight-Angelo 29

Great Depression-era America, as much as it is a treatise on unconditional maternal love in spite

of diminished circumstances. Finally, Paley’s “A Conversation With My Father” uses an

argument with her father as a hypothetical debate on the merits of postmodernism, which

simultaneously parallels with her mother and son characters’ acknowledgment of their society’s

“youth culture.”

Of the Chinese-American culture portrayed in “Two Kinds,” author Amy Tan is quick to

note that she is often placed in classroom literary canons “for all the wrong reasons”: “I am

alarmed when reviewers and educators assume that my very personal, specific, and fictional

stories are meant to be representative down to the nth detail not just of Chinese Americans but,

sometimes, of all Asian culture” (Tan 1550). She goes on to expose numerous tales of well-

meaning readers and critics offering more credit to her for shaping the western world’s view of

the Chinese-American landscape than she feels they ought to. More to the point, Tan argues, “I

don’t write to dig a hole and fill it with symbols. I don’t write stories as ethnic themes. I don’t

write to represent life in general. And I certainly don’t write because I have answers. If I knew

everything there is to know about mothers and daughters, Chinese and Americans, I wouldn’t

have any stories left to imagine” (1551). Even providing strong role models in her characters,

Tan says, is not her goal. At the same time, as novelist Valerie Miner argues, “Tan’s special gifts

are her storytelling ability and her ‘remarkable ear for dialogue and dialect, representing the

choppy English of the mother and the sloppy California vernacular of the daughter with a

sensitive authenticity’” (Charters 1221). Such authenticity, Charters infers, is what makes “the

resilient bond between mother and daughter” (1221) come to life, even if they are not meant to

represent any particular status quo.

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In contrast, O’Connor is equally firm that her own stories should be read not as realistic

fiction, but as parables. Also, Charters points out, O’Connor’s “remarkable ear for dialogue” and

her use of family relationships to explore religious motifs are notable staples (1004). O’Connor

herself was uncompromisingly Roman Catholic; and while her stories certainly reflect her

dogmatic beliefs, Brinkmeyer is firm that they are not “tracts” or religious propaganda. Rather,

the author seeks to make her faith look realistic, not favorable. In this sense, "Everything That

Rises Must Converge" paradoxically incorporates "the rising and convergence of a suppressed

group (blacks) in society," as well as the "spiritual decay" of the previous generation as it levels

into an "irresonant, faithless world of tomorrow" (Wyatt 68-9). This is symbolized by Julian's

mother's diminished capacity as a noble woman whose family is no longer on top of the world.

On the inside, she insists repeatedly to her son, she is a Chestny; on the outside, however, she

and her surroundings; their current neighborhood; her grandfather’s now-dilapidated mansion,

overrun with Black squatters were "once fashionable but now [are] deteriorated and dingy"

(Wyatt 69).

O’Connor thus confronts the racial tension apparent in Julian and his mother’s world,

though her loftier intent is to incite the characters to confront their own salvation. In the case of

“Converge,” this appears to be mainly aimed at Julian, epitomized early on in the story as “Saint

Sebastian [waiting] for the arrows to begin piercing him” (O’Connor 1005). Wyatt points out,

however, that some critics find O'Connor's characters to be "typically too ambiguous to serve as

either heroes or villains" (Wyatt 66). To this, O'Connor offers that "Her protagonists may not be

able to support the grace that befalls them, but she loves them nonetheless," as well as her

antagonists, who conversely "become the objects of the searching grace that finds them lacking"

(Wyatt 67). Upon this, Wyatt heaps that O'Connor "confronts a drastically fallen world in which

Haight-Angelo 31

even the remnants of religious belief are vanishing and the instruments and recipients of grace

themselves may be as sordid as the damned" (67). In this, he offers, her stories are parables; her

characters "dubious ... vessels of grace" (68).

Author intent aside, of the five short stories previously discussed, “Everything That Rises

Must Converge” is easily the one most irrevocably shaped by its cultural backdrop. That is,

without consideration of the tensions between White and Black persons in the story, it ceases to

have much relevance to the world beyond O’Connor’s rather abstract religious beliefs. Indeed,

the story is one of frequent contrasts: Julian is disinterested in his family legacy whereas his

mother literally cannot function without it. More tangibly, at the beginning of the story, Julian’s

mother dons a “hideous hat” for her trip into town for her “reducing class at the Y” to help her

lose weight (O’Connor 1005). The hat is purple and green and “jaunty and pathetic” (O’Connor

1005), a concise categorization of its owner according to her son. Later in the story, his mother is

confronted with a Black woman during the bus trip into town who has bought the same hat, a

fact which delights Julian: “The vision of the two hats, identical, broke upon him with the

radiance of a brilliant sunrise. His face was suddenly lit with joy. He could not believe that Fate

had thrust upon his mother such a lesson … His grin hardened until it said to her as plainly as if

he were saying aloud: Your punishment exactly fits your pettiness. This should teach you a

permanent lesson” (O’Connor 1012-3).

As one might suspect from O’Connor, however, the permanent lesson is really Julian’s.

Offended when his mother attempts to give the Black woman’s child, Carver a penny (“He don’t

take nobody’s pennies!” [O’Connor 1014]), Julian continues to hold his perceived superiority

over his mother: “‘Don’t think that was just an uppity Negro woman,’ he said. ‘That was the

whole colored race which will no longer take your condescending pennies. That was your black

Haight-Angelo 32

double. She can wear the same hat as you, and to be sure,’ he added gratuitously (because he

thought it was funny), ‘it looked better on her than it did on you’” (O’Connor 1015). Julian, too,

has a black double, a “Negro man” on the same bus route who “immediately unfold[s] a

newspaper and obscure[s] himself behind it” (O’Connor 1010). Though Julian wistfully wishes

to “convey his sympathy” (O’Connor 1010) and align himself idealistically with the man in the

spirit of racial harmony, it is not to be. In this, Julian’s social disgust works against him; for, like

him, the Black man prefers to remain “entrenched behind his paper” (O’Connor 1010) where he

can “see out and judge” while remaining “safe from any kind of penetration” or “general idiocy

of his fellows” (O’Connor 1009). As if on cue, Julian’s mother prefers to make small talk with

“A thin woman with protruding teeth and long yellow hair” (O’Connor 1008) whom Julian finds

absolutely repulsive, rather than with someone more worthy; naturally, Julian and his mother

have very opposing ideas about what constitutes worth. Yet another contrast is mentioned plainly

by O’Connor, that between Julian and Carver, the latter whom sits next to Julian’s mother on the

bus, and his mother next to Julian. The “symbolic significance” of the “swapped sons” is

obvious; not only that, but Carver’s innocence and unabashed interest in his substitute mother

aligns well with Julian’s mother, repeatedly characterized as child-like (O’Connor 1012).

Similarly, Julian is likened to Carver’s actual mother, a “giant of a woman” whose sour

demeanor is all too familiar to the reader. Both she and Julian are “set not only to meet

opposition but to seek it out” (O’Connor 1012), a task at which they are both tragically

successful, at Julian’s mother’s expense.

Down but not out, Julian uses the hat incident to triumphantly hammer home the notion

that “‘the old world is gone. The old manners are obsolete and your graciousness is not worth a

damn … You aren’t who you think you are’” (O’Connor 1015). Symbolically, Julian’s

Haight-Angelo 33

prediction is his mother’s undoing; the excitement of the day, topped with his increasingly

vitriolic verbal barbs ignite his mother’s high blood pressure into what appears, at the end of the

story, to be a fatal stroke. As Wyatt observes, if Julian's mother's "sense of herself is unsuited to

the modern temper, [Julian's own] premature world-weariness and arrogant misanthropy insulate

him from any genuine relationship, even with his mother. It is his rejection of her, his figurative

killing of her, that projects the 'real world' that he must enter after her death - 'the world of guilt

and sorrow'" (Wyatt 71). Ultimately, Wyatt writes, Julian pushes his own beliefs on his mother

until they are but strangers to one another.

Similarly, and ever ironically, stagnant, overly mature Julian reverts almost to an

incapacitated, child-like state upon realizing that the experience with the Black woman has

triggered his mother’s fabled blood pressure trouble. Previously regarding his mother

disdainfully as a "grubby child" (O'Connor 1005, Julian himself now assumes the role of an

infant: "'Mother!' he cried. 'Darling, sweetheart, wait!' Crumpling, she fell to the pavement. He

dashed forward and fell at her side, crying. 'Mamma, Mamma!'" (O'Connor 1015).

Unfortunately, having effectively pushed his mother away so many times, she finds "nothing"

recognizable in his face and succumbs (most likely) to death (O'Connor 1015). Paradoxically,

Julian's mother also recedes to where she feels safe, asking for her deceased father and the Black

nurse, Caroline who used to care for her as a child, in lieu of acknowledging Julian's ability to

help her (which he no longer can or will). Tragedy, then, befalls the mother-son relationship in

O'Connor's story, just as it does the one in Paley's "Conversation." In this, both characters

“struggle for personal power which they [both] misunderstand” (Pritchett 1628); Julian, who is

corrupt and “absorbed in his own ego,” Booth argues (1639), dwells on his mother’s

inadequacies. His very name is representative of the “mortal sin” (Booth 1640) which neither

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Julian nor his mother are successful at saving him from. Similarly, reality exists between them,

somewhere further center of Julian’s stereotypically elite Black people and his mother’s racial

prejudices. Ultimately, neither of them rises from the “poor-white” (Pritchett 1629) construct that

society has bequeathed to them, to their mutually great injustice.

If O’Connor represents the poor, White perspective of the American South’s racial

inequality, then Alice Walker picks up the slack for her Black characters in “Everyday Use.”

Walker considers herself a “womanist,” a black feminist, for whom racial inequality extends

beyond her specific people. “‘When I look at the people in Iran they look like kinfolk’” (Charters

1305), Walker offers, giving credence to Dee’s association with Hakim-a-barber, with whom she

perceives a shared struggle. Indeed, Dee's (Wangero's) trendy lifestyle is the textbook definition

of the African-American civil rights road trip, with all of the notable pit stops: "the simple

integrationist imperative that followed ‘Brown v. Board of Education’ (1954) to the collective

outrage of the long hot summer of 1967 and the rise of an Islamic alternative to the Christianity

that black America had hitherto embraced” (172-3). Cowart continues: “Walker herself traveled

to Africa, and one imagines ... Wangero [as similarly] ... Africa smitten ... she has progressed to

an idea of nationality radically at odds with all that has hitherto defined the racial identity of

African-Americans" (172-3). More to the point, Dee risks "deracination in [her] quest for

personal authenticity" (Cowart 183), which she grasps at with palpable determination: "In her

name, her clothes, her hair, her sunglasses, her patronizing speech, and her black Muslim

companion, Wangero proclaims a deplorable degree of alienation from her rural origins and

family," Cowart (172) notes. Furthermore, "The story's irony is not subtle: the visitor who

reproaches others for an ignorance of their own heritage (a word that probably does not figure in

Haight-Angelo 35

the lexicon of either her mother or her sister) is herself almost completely disconnected from a

nurturing tradition" (Cowart 172).

Cowart continues: "Assimilation, torching the ghetto, Islam, the Africanist vision -

Walker treats these alternatives with respect, even as she satirizes her character's uncritical

embracing of one after another of them" in Wangero, who sees her mother and sister as

exemplary visions of "character[s] bred in adversity" (Cowart 174) from which she has worked

so defiantly to disassociate herself. In essence, Cowart offers, Wangero is "hopelessly selfish and

misguided" (175), appropriating for herself the "cunning and quaint implements and products of

[her] past" (Cowart 175) the way that her White oppressors would. Like O'Connor's showcasing

of Julian's misplaced pride, the lesson for Dee to take back to her sophisticated world in

"Everyday Use" is not subtle. Cowart, too, recognizes the parallels between O'Connor's writing

and Walker's: "O'Connor contrasts intellectual pretension with certain transcendent realities:

Original Sin, Grace, prospects for redemption. Walker, meanwhile, assesses ideas of cultural

identity within a community only a few minutes' drive from the home in which O'Connor spent

her last years" (182). Whereas O'Connor "allows so little real value to black aspiration" in stories

like "Converge," however, Walker "parodies the iconoclastic tricks that O'Connor uses over and

over again" (Cowart 182). In this sense, both writers uphold eloquent, though "competing

ideologies", O'Connor's "spiritual folly of a godless age" to Walker's interest in "social

shortsightedness" (Cowart 182).

Tornsey offers up the metaphor between quilting and women's writing (1556), a notion

which Cowart heartily champions:

Haight-Angelo 36

Walker contrives to make the situation of Wangero, the visitor, analogous to the

cultural position of the minority writer who, disinclined to express the fate of the

oppressed in the language and literary structures of the oppressor, seeks a more

authentic idiom and theme. Such a writer, Walker says, must not become a

literary Wangero. Only by remaining in touch with a proximate history and an

immediate cultural reality can one lay a claim to the quilts - or hope to produce

the authentic art they represent. Self-chastened, Walker presents her own art - the

piecing of linguistic and literary intertexts - as quilt-making with words, an art as

imbued with the African American past as the literal quilt-making of the

grandmother for whom Wangero was originally named. (172)

Paley also chastens herself in “A Conversation With My Father,” allowing her dad to

criticize her life’s work while simultaneously showcasing both her postmodern prowess and her

close relationship with her father. “Her space dissection of her characters is never performed at

the expense of sympathy for the human condition,” Charters writes (1080). Thus, though Paley’s

style is experimental, her “supple gift for language” and her “‘funny, sad, lean, modest,

energetic, acute’” (Sontag; cited by Charters 1080) storytelling gives the reader a sense of the

author’s “compassion, humor, and hope” (Charters 1080). Of her experimental leanings, Paley’s

father accuses her of not being able to “‘look [anything] in the face’” (Paley 1084). Indeed, both

the narrator of “Conversation” and the style of writing hedge around a plain-faced demonization

of either the mother or son character. In response, Paley can only offer weak platitudes: “‘it

could really happen that way, it’s a funny world nowadays’” (1084). For the narrator, hope

comes in the notion of open, endless possibilities for the mother in her story to undertake. Her

father, however, will have none of it; even the idea that the mother has a child out of wedlock is

Haight-Angelo 37

damning. Whereas Paley argues that such details are of “small consequence” (1082), to her

father, it is everything, a fact that Paley rationalizes away due to her father’s previous occupation

first as a doctor, and then an artist for whom “details, craft, technique” (1082) are of the utmost

importance. There is no firm grudge to be had between father and daughter in “Conversation,”

however, merely Paley’s forethought that her father was sick and that she should merely attempt

to placate him; “we were very close” (Paley 1526), she offers.

Tillie Olsen’s “Ironing” is another example of a story shaped largely by its surroundings.

Olsen tries to separate herself from the arguable burden of the title of motherhood, under which

she nonetheless gets placed. Not only that, claims Canadian author Margaret Atwood; Olsen is

often revered for undertaking the “heroic feat” of having “held down a job, raised four children,

and still somehow managed to become and remain a writer” (Charters 1052). At best, a

compromise can be offered wherein Olsen writes of motherhood realistically; as Coles praises,

Olsen is “unyielding and strong-minded, but never hysterical or shrill” (Coles 1436). Such a feat

also makes her able to truthfully discuss her life during the Great Depression in stories like

“Ironing”; “littered”, though it was, with “unfulfilled dreams” (Coles 1433). Emily and her

mother lead “blundering lives” (Coles 1433), filled with mistakes, and devoid of opportunity and

personal choice. Frye illustrates well the "general cultural pressure" of the Great Depression era

to "define and limit the power of individual choice" (290), even characterizing the mother's

aforementioned pride in breast-feeding her daughter as mere obedience to "the decree of the

clock" (Frye 290). Coles, too, comments on the dull interchangeability of the social worker, yet

another symbolic representation of the times: “A social worker of guidance counselor or

psychologist or psychiatrist (who knows which, and who cares – a substantial number of them all

sound drearily alike)” (1433). In this, Coles argues, the story reflects an “interior monologue

Haight-Angelo 38

devoted to the exterior” (1434); Emily and her mother are both swimming against the current as

best they can; bogged down as it is with disappointment and failure and poverty. Emily’s mother

is expected to make difficult choices that alter her relationship with her eldest daughter, not

always positively. Even so, the narrator’s sense of regret and self-pity are fleeting; occasional

bursts of emotion eek out (“She is so lovely. Why did you want me to come in at all? Why were

you concerned? She will find her way” [Olsen 1058]), but Olsen “pulls back immediately” and

“never once falter[s]” (Coles 1436). She remains strong, for her daughter; for herself.

Conclusion

As Carruthers notes, “Many families are dominated by mothers ... Some mothers enjoy

the responsibilities of motherhood. Others complain about their limited freedom, justify and

excuse their behavior, and may reject their partners, verbally and/or non-verbally.” Each of the

maternal relationships in the short stories by Olsen, Walker, Tan, O’Connor and Paley represents

a realistic portrayal of motherhood, with all of its imperfections in-tact and on full display.

Sometimes the mother does something unforgiveable; sometimes the child acts out for attention,

or to combat the threat of his or her mother’s affection being whisked away. Rejection is a key

factor in all five stories, whether of an ideal or a person; likewise, it occurs simultaneously

alongside the search for a greater truth than the current status quo provides. In spite of their

flaws, however, the mothers portrayed in each story are noticeably maternal; though not strictly

defined by the role of motherhood to which they often adhere, it is difficult to imagine that any

particular one does not love the person whom she has created and raised in the complicated and

heartbreaking and wonderful way that only a mother can love her own child.

Haight-Angelo 39

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