The ambivalence in the relationship between Annette and Antoinette is painful at times, and leads to the mental illnesses that consume both mother and daughter. It is uncertain whether mental illness impeded the mother-daughter relationship from developing in Wide Sargasso Sea, or whether the thwarted relationship caused mental illness. In any case, Antoinette is shown to be a person who needs the role of mother in her life. This is why she develops a strong bond with Christophene. This "cross-racial mothering relationship" allows Antoinette to "transfer" her love, which Annette could not accept, to a surrogate (Adalgisa 62). The role of Christophene as surrogate mother is not unusual, according to Adalgisa. In traditional cultures, and especially those of West Africa, the "othermother" was a woman who would help a birthmother as an essential community survival strategy. Othermothering survived as a cultural, social, political, and economic institution in slave cultures in exile from Africa, allowing the daughters of enslaved mothers to survive. This is a non-patriarchal and non-European vision of motherhood that transcends the more restrictive type of motherhood idealized in the institution of nuclear family. Instead of burdening the woman with domestic servitude and restricting her work life to the unpaid labor of household management, the othermother model allows all women to pursue work while also remaining true to their mothering. Unfortunately, Antoinette has inherited from her mother more than just mental illness, though. She also inherits a racialized worldview, racism, and a racist society. Antoinette can never truly love Christophene in the way Christophene is capable of loving her, which highlights the fact that ambivalence can emerge also in the relationship between daughter and surrogate mother. It is not just biological mother that causes rifts in the personal identity. Sula and Wide Sargasso Sea do not address the complexities of the stepmother-daughter relationship, which also introduces different dynamics and dimensions.
Relationships between females are determined by the nature of the mother-daughter relationship. How one feels about one's role as mother, and about...
Likewise, how one feels about one's role as daughter, and feelings toward the mother, will impact relationships with both males and females. This is a reality explored in both Sula and in Wide Sargasso Sea. In Sula, the relationship between Nel and Sula is central to the novel. Nel and Sula's relationship is determined by the two women's feelings toward their own mothers. Nel has become a conservative woman because she wants to live up to her mother's expectations of her. Yet those expectations end up destroying her most important friendship, as she transfers her ambivalent feelings and also anger onto Sula instead of owning it. Only Sula's death can alert Nel to the reality of the problem. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Tia betrays Antoinette in a meaningful way, highlighting the fact that race trumps gender in social relationships. Because of her mother's racism, Annette inherits the scourge of being always labeled as a colonialist and a slave-owner. She never created her own identity, and is thus thrust into a friendless and loveless world.
Sula and Wide Sargasso Sea are extraordinary novels that use the mother-daughter relationship as a pivot from which to explore the dynamics of other social and political realities like race, class, gender, and social power. The mother-daughter relationship determines personal identity and psychology. It also determines one's role and status in the community. The mother-daughter relationship determines one's relationships to other women, as well as to men. Because the mother-daughter relationship is an archetype of all other relationships, especially female-to-female ones, it is an important theme to address in literature.
Works Cited
Adalgisa, Giorgio, Writing Mothers and Daughters: Renegotiating the Mother in Western European Narratives by Women. NY and Oxford: Berghahn, 2002
Burrows, Victoria. Whiteness and Trauma. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Penguin, 1973.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: Norton, 1966.
Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born. New York: W.W. Norton, 1986.
