Bastard out of Carolina

October 16, 2007

Women’s Studies

Professor Andrea Harris

Bastard Out of Carolina

5) Comment on the relationship between Bone and her mama. Situate your comments within our class discussions and use specific quotes from the text as evidence of your claims.

From the very beginning of the book, I felt like there was a unstable relationship between Bone and her mother simply because of the age that her mother had her at. Her mother was young and really did not know the first thing about having children but she did. Her mother seemed to need guidance about everything that seemed grown-up in nature; she needed help with taking care of and even doing something as meaningful as acknowledging that Bone was alive in the hospital. She had been to the hospital three times to get the birth certificate situation straightened out. To me, this set up the idea that surely (although it is her mother and a mother is supposed to protect her child and be the first person a child comes to when they need to talk about something) when something went wrong with Bone that her mother would never be the typical mom that would comfort her because she would not know the right thing to do…it would just be another situation in which she still acted childlike and unsure.

Another reason that I say that Bone’s relationship with her mother is very unstable is because of the idea that was placed in her mind by her family. When Bone’s mother was in the hospital pregnant with Glen’s baby and lost it…Bone was told that she would have to be strong for her mother after losing the baby. “Your mama’s gonna need a little time …Then she’s gonna need you more than she ever has. When a woman loses her baby, she needs to know that her other babies are well and happy. You be happy for her Bone. You let your mama know you are happy so she can heal her heart”. Of course, when her aunt told her this, I’m sure she did not know that Bone would keep something like molestation away from her mother…but she did in order to keep her happy. Bone really took this to heart