Mom Me Mom

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Elif GÜLER ÇAĞİN

Woman and Writing


2nd of January, 2019

MOM & ME & MOM : THE CELEBRATION OF MOTHER –DAUGHTER

RELATIONSHIP

ABSTRACT

Afro American writer, Maya Angelou, a respectable writer of autobiography, once more,

unfolds a documentary- story of her childhood, girlhood and adulthood in her final book in

the series of autobiographies, Mom & Me & Mom. Different from the others, this time she

primarily highlights the unbreakable link between mothers and daughters and it turns into a

moving tale of separation and reunion. Additionally, she deals with her metamorphosis from

a wounded child to self-sufficient adult, from daughtership to motherhood, with contributions

of the mother ,Vivian. This paper aims to read and analyze these processes in the light of

arguments provided by Luce Irıgaray, Nancy Chodorow and M.B. Walker.

Key Words: Mother-daughter relationship, transformation, motherhood, marriage

Mom & Me & Mom, Maya Angelou's seventh and final book in her series

of autobiographies, records her passage to adulthood ,the memories of her motherhood and

the relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter. Among a number of novels written by

women that question and highlight the mother and daughter relationship, Angelo’s work is

noteworthy in that, it celebrates this bond contrary to others which represent mother-blaming

plots. Through her own narrative voice, she offers a realistic reflection of her own first-hand

experiences which makes the book an autobiographical cultural analysis of a wounded

daughter. In the first decade of her life, she not only lacks the maternal “confirmation and
approval” but also suffers from absence of maternal “affection and attention” because of her

mother’s inability to take her responsibility. The reunion with mother in her girlhood changes

the course of this negative situation and they establish an everlasting bond and Maya gains her

self esteem which has been wounded as a result of lack of maternal love and mirroring.

Embodied with confidence, spiritual power and determination, this time, she becomes a

mother and raises her own son, Guy, in the light of these achievements.

Angelou speaks as woman about women both to women and men in her work. In this

way, she confirms what Irıgaray defends regarding the necessity of peculiar discourse through

which women may speak with their mothers. Walker, taking into account Irıgaray arguments,

suggests that continuity between daughters and mothers is experienced with the help of

literary domain, women build bridges between themselves and their mothers in writing. She

adds that by speaking of the ambivalence of the mother-daughter relationship, women give

birth to themselves. This ambivalence consists of contradictory experiences: “love and hate,

mutuality and estrangement, anger and desire, unity and separation.” (162). As she points, it is

possible to see co-existence of the contradictions in Angelou’s work. Being exiled from her

mother at the age of three, Maya also oscillates between love and hate, anger and forgiveness,

intimacy and alienation when they are reunited. Once this dilemma is solved and bridges are

constructed, she steps further and discovers her potentials. To begin with, this paper will

relate how Maya and her mother restore their relation between them that is cut years ago, then

it will try to show how Maya develops a true self ,gains her confidence and independence,

next, it will deal with her transition into motherhood and analyze how Maya survives under

the effects of patriarchal society.

Angelou celebrates a strong mother-daughter relationship in which a peculiar language

is constituted between two sides. It seems as if she has followed the step that Irıgaray

suggested and described in her book “Je Tu Nous” concerning how mothers and daughters
could develop their relationship. First of all, she urges women to form their own discourse, a

language . She writes:

I suggest mothers create opportunities to use the femine plural with their

daughters They could also invent words and expressions to designate

realities they feel and share but for which they lack language. (48)

After long separation process, to be able to find a connection Vivian and Maya do what

Irıgaray points. They create a language. From the very beginning, Vivian calls her as ‘my

baby’, but Maya cannot answer back her as “Mother.” At first, she prefers using ma’am to

address her. Vivian watches and lets her to choose her own expressions for several weeks.

Then, she tries to communicate with her and ‘sit-down-talk to’ sessions start. These sessions

are repeated whenever they become necessary in the rest of her life. When she understands

that Maya has difficulty in addressing her as mother, they decide on a substitute word that is

more reasonable than ‘Ma’am’ and until Maya herself becomes a mother, she calls her as

‘Lady’. She introduces her new name to other members of the family without humiliating her

daughter; she handles the situation with grace saying that “everybody has the right to be

called anything he wants to be called.”(ch.7) .In this fragile period, Vivian conquers her

daughters’ heart with these initiations.

Along with this agreement on expressions and verbal exchanges, in time they begin to

speak and share everything, which strengthens their relationship. As Irıgaray suggests, “the

mother woman”, Vivian, “speaks to the daughter woman”, Maya,”talks about things that

concern the two of them, talks about herself and asks her daughter to do same.”(1993:50) In

order to make her adapt her new life, home and city, Vivien always guides her daughter with

her advices .the first thing she advices her to smile and Maya appreciates her for this. “That

day, I learned that I could be a giver simply by bringing a smile to another person. The
ensuing years have taught me that a kind word or a vote of support can be charitable

gift.”(ch.3) After Vivien is informed that Maya is pregnant, she arrives home and just talks to

Maya. She tells the family stories about the babies, pregnancies and delivering babies. She

remembers the night when Maya is born and recounts those memories. During the delivery,

she does not leave her daughter but tells jokes and encourages her to bear down. Being an

experienced woman whenever she senses negativity that encloses her daughter, she pushes her

to share it. In another time, she accounts her own problem and asks for Maya’s help. These

mutual conversations, sharing and cooperation intensify their bond that was broken in the

past.

The lately established strong bond is perpetuated owing to an outer private space that

Vivian has created for Maya and her never ending support to her daughter. The idea of space

as a necessity is emphasized by Irıgaray as well . She thinks :

“It is important for them (mothers and daughters) to have their own outer

space, enabling them to go from inside to the outside of themselves, to

experience themselves as autonomous and free subjects.” (1993: 48)

Maya’s first private space is her new room prepared for her before she reunites her mother.

Vivien arranges it knowing that it is not just a room but an initial step that implies the

individuation of a person. After she gives birth to her son, Maya extends this spatial

independence by finding a job and moving to a separate place. Her daughter decision makes

Vivian feel proud of her little “baby” who has been transformed into an adult at an early age

and she lets her experience her own singularity. Maya never regrets having left behind all the

amenities provided for her, on the contrary, she is grateful of her liberation and expresses it

openly: “Mother liberated me by letting me know she was on my side I realized that I had

grown close to her and that she had liberated me. She liberated me from a society that would
have had me think of myself as the lower of the low. She liberated me to life.(ch.13)”In

addition to this sense of liberation, it is noticed that Vivian contributes to her daughter‘s

transformation into a powerful, adamant and self-confident woman with her everlasting

support and encouragement. On her return to San Francisco from summer visit of her father ,

Maya works as conductorette until she returns to school. During those months, Vivian gives

her a lift, waits until the daybreak to protect her. Furthermore, she welcomes her grandson as

a “wonderful baby” and never causes Maya to hate herself because of this illegitimate

occurrence. What is more, Maya’s each new attempt for her career is always approved and

she finds her mother on her side whenever she demands her assistance. Thanks to her

reinforcement and aid Maya believes that she is going to become somebody.(ch.14) The more

time passes, the more the solidarity between them gains indestructible dimension.

In Angelou’s transition from anxious child to confident teenager and self sufficient

adult, her grandmother’s guardianship and her brother, Bailey’s existence, who also shares the

pain of abandonment, are as valuable as the continuous impact of Vivian’s reinforcement.

Being packed off with her brother to Arkansas where her grandmother lives and the absence

of parental love amplify her sense of loss and emotional displacement .She develops a

negative self image .As psychoanalysts assume, her basic ego development is wounded .This

early separation from her biological mother threatens Maya’s very sense of existence.

Consequently, she cannot develop her “true self” (Chodorow, 1978:60).This is revealed at

their first encounter:“She looked around and saw me. I wanted to sink into ground. I was not

pretty or even cute. That woman looked like a movie star deserved a better looking daughter

than me. I knew it and was sure she would know it as soon as she saw me.”(ch.3).The

Grandmother transmits the values and ensures protection even though she sometimes fails to

sustain sufficient maternal affection of which Maya is in need.“She kissed me. I had not

received on kiss in all the years in Arkansas. Often my grandmother would call me and show
ne off to her visitors. “This is my grandbaby.”She would stroke me and smile. That was the

closest I had come to being kissed.”(ch.3) Her grandmother does her best to provide a positive

model of black female empowerment; she and Bailey create an order out of all this poignant

chaos. Maya’s faith in brother is out of debate. His feeling the responsibility for her rearing

and his protectiveness towards her function like a shelter under which Maya feels secure and

her childhood innocence finds a crack to live. Thanks to this strong bond of her extended

family, Maya manages to adapt into life in her ensuing years.

The autobiographical mode permits Angelou to share a pair of selected experiences and

incidents that reveal how she obtains her confidence and determination .The first one of them

is her adventure in San Diego where she has to spend the summer with her father and step-

mother. After a period of time, in effort to improve their relations, her father drives her to

Mexico. In a cantina near the border ,he gets drunk .Though she has never taken driving

lesson, just relying on her previous observation of the working of a manual transmission car,

she drives her drunken father’s car, gets down off the mountain and arrives at home. She is

confronted with the accusations of her step mother and rather than showing tolerance to her

step mother’s assault, she packs her bag and leaves the house. Until she is ready to return San

Francisco, Maya lives in the junkyard, sleeps in a car together with about fifteen kids whom

she does not know before. Without an adult supervisor, among multi racial community who

accepts her, Maya strengthens her ego and develops a racial tolerance. Angelou seems to

stress that especially these two incidents awaken adolescent Maya to notice her capacity and

power. The following incident, the struggle for employment, reinforces her growing

confidence in herself. For two weeks, with her mother urges, she challenges against the

railway company to get the job and her resolution results in the accomplishment of her dream.

Even, her mother is impressed by her insistent and adamant trials. She expresses: “No, you

learned that you have power and determination, I love you and I am proud of you. With those
two things, you can go anywhere and everywhere.”(ch.10). Maya's three empowering life

experiences and the growing self reliance makes her realise that she can stand on her own

feet and control her own destiny.

Alongside re-established mother and daughter relationship, Angelou portrays her own

experience of motherhood. In a sense, she remembers and rewrites the history of black

mothers. In spite of being a teenage unwed mother, she decides to wrestle with the hardships,

problems and conflicts of life, and enters the circle of working mothers. Thereby, her

experience of motherhood is intertwined with work. Raised by a widowed grandmother and a

divorced but self-contained mother, her ego ideals, she already acquires this tradition of

female independence and responsibility. As it is known that motherhood is generally

associated with domesticity and it is positioned in the domestic circle, but for black women it

is inseparable from work. Maya like her ancestors finds herself working in badly-paid menial

jobs to provide for her son. It becomes nearly impossible for her to earn a decent living and

also her son’s health condition deteriorates in time. It is noticed that Maya’s working

conditions are against the assumptions of feminist movements in sixties and seventies which

supported women’s working outside to liberate them from economic dependence on men. She

does not depend on men but shares her responsibility of mothering with her mother .Her son,

Guy, spends at least two days in his grandmother’s house and grows up in extended family

structure as his mother. Now and then, Maya relies on her mother care and help for Guy while

she is after her career ambitions. Because of the cultural expectations that announce a mother

should stay with her child at all time, she is surrendered to the sense of guilty consciousness.

Chodorow underscores this historical reality in her work which analyzes women’s mothering

across the generations. She openly expresses that “for child care women’s mothering is taken

for granted “and “women continue to perform their mothering activities in the family”.(1978:
3- 5). In the presence of this historical determinism, it is not difficult to imagine the

occurrences that Maya has to endure and why she is drifted into marriage institution.

In spite of absence paternal authority figure in the past, she still believes that marriage

may bring stability and normality into her life which is rising and falling in her twenties but it

proves the opposite. Maya's fantasy of marriage and the actual experience juxtapose with each

other. She fantasizes that she can be a good housewife who lives in a separate house that

belongs to the family, cooks meals and meets married couples to socialize. Moreover, she

expects that her spouse may be a male role model for Guy, too. At the beginning, she fulfils

all of these obligations and feels satisfied with her dream like life. She “fits into married life

as a foot fits into a well-worn shoe”. (ch 17).Tosh, her husband, and her son make good

friends, she experiments on fancy dishes and they meet some racially mixed couples on

Saturdays. Unfortunately, in metaphorical sense, when Tosh takes this “marriage carriage” in

hand and decides where to drive on his own, her romanticism comes to end. She

describes:“The light in my marriage waned as the sun sets in the western sky. At first the

dimness is hardly noticeable ,then noticeable but not alarming. Then with a rush, the light is

vanquished by darkness.”( ch. 19)

The more she compromises a lot of herself, the more she surrenders to Tosh’s demands.

When she begins to lose her marital interests, she can evaluate her marriage in an objective

way. Her marriage in which she seeks for a father figure for his son and a protection for her

proves that it is nothing more than a imprisonment. First of all, she is barred from her current

job, her interests and her friends respectively. Then, As a woman who is sent to domestic

sphere from public sphere by her husband, she is just expected to be satisfied with what the

dominant side provides for her. The male income provider, the husband, persists his

“phallocratic" power over her and does not allow it to be denied. Persistence of male authority

brings oppression and exploitation together with it.


Differently from marriage institution, Angelo illustrates many other occasions which

unveil sexual abuses and psychical violence that she is exposed to. These occasions objectify

men’s acknowledgement of women as objects that can be possessed, abused or exchanged

like a commodity. In This Sex which is not One, Irıgaray asserts that women undergo an

oppression, exploitation of their body and denial of their desire; They are abused either

sexually or economically.(164) These social reality echoes itself in Maya’s miseries. At the

age of seven, Maya is raped by one of her mother’s boyfriend who accepts himself superior to

woman and her body as an object which is expected to subordinate to the desires of his

masculine power. Her second sexual experience is not very different from the first one. Her

partner disregards her body’s wishes and just focuses on his pleasure. Maya accounts this

experience as “without kissing, foreplay coddling or whispering.”(ch.13) .They just get their

pants down and sex. Over and above this disappointment, she is exposed to psychical violence

by her following boyfriend whom she has confidence in his affection and sincerity. He beats

her to the death claiming that she deceives him and intends to kill her so as not to leave her

for some other Negro to have her. (ch.15). The masculine imaginary that society has formed

entitles him to beat and even kill her. These bitter incidents become the voice of all women

who suffer from ongoing violence or abuse of men and reflect destructive nature of masculine

power.

In conclusion, Mom & Me & Mom , as the title suggests, discusses Maya Angelou and

her mother, Vivian, relationship from her childhood until her mother death. Her sense of

estrangement towards her mother and her inability respond to her mother emotionally that

emerge as a result of maternal deprivation vanish over time after reunion with her mother and

they construct a strong bond. The more this bond hardens, the more Maya discovers her

potentials and turns into self reliant and self confident woman. In spite of negative
experiences of her sexuality and marital life, she manages to survive thanks to praise worthy

contributions of her mother and grandmother.

REFERENCES

Angelou, M. (2013). Mom & Me & Mom. Random House, New York

Chodorow, N. (1978). The Reproduction of Mothering. University of California Press,

Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.

Irıgaray, L. (1993). Je ,Tu, Nous ,( Trans: A. Martin), Routledge, London and New York.

Irıgaray, L . (1985). This Sex Which Is Not One, ( Trans: C. Porter and C. Burke), Cornell

University Press, New York.

Walker, M. B. (1998). Philosophy and The Maternal Body. Routledge, London and New

York.

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