Hester is afraid of Black male sexuality -- yet also fears that her own son, the extension of her self in Freudian identity constructs, her status or phallic symbol of power in the patriarchal society of the town, had a hand in killing the African-American man. To do what is right, she must cut herself off thus from her past, fatherly sense of identity and power, and her current sense of male autonomy -- cut herself off from both the protections of race and familial maleness.
The author seems to construct Hester's struggle not in general psychological terms, but in regional terms. The conflict between Blacks and White, and Black and White men and women, he suggests, is a particular Southern obsession in the way this struggle plays out. There is also an added sense of poignancy, as the South, a region sundered from the North during the Civil War, now causes Hester to be estranged from her son in a conflict of morality. Hester must defend a man who can bring her...
The community's desire for infantile regression to a false Southern past that never existed ultimately proves Hester's and the community's undoing. Still, the author's love of the South still shines through, and even if the reader cannot share it, it provides a powerful illustration between the ties of mother and son in the South, and how women become objects to be fought over, and men exist as symbols and vehicles of power and autonomy for Southern women.
Works Cited
Jones, Marion. A Cry of Absence. Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1994.
