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Article

Open Access

Care and Estrangement in Mother-Child Relationship in Sula

Author(s)

HU Rong

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DOI:10.17265/1539-8072/2023.09.003

Affiliation(s)

University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

ABSTRACT

Motherhood is one of the unavoidable themes of Toni Morrison’s Sula. However, motherhood manifests itself more as split and disconnection than affection and comfort in this novel. From the perspective of the ethic of care, we will find that motherhood is rather complicated and fraught with conflicts. The onus of parenthood care has traditionally fallen on the mother. The reality is that mother care is not as guaranteed and unconditional as readers used to believe. The performance of mother care is actually subject to many hindrances even though the mother may entertain a profound love towards her child. In this story, we may find that racial oppression, financial hardship, emotional burden, children’s depressing response, etc., all exemplify these hindrances. Lack of care, thus, can lead to the disconnection and estrangement between mother and child. This novel dispels the myth of unconditional maternal love and presents to us the complicatedness of motherhood.

KEYWORDS

Sula, motherhood, ethic of care

Cite this paper

Sino-US English Teaching, September 2023, Vol. 20, No. 9, 360-364 doi:10.17265/1539-8072/2023.09.003

References

King, J. E., & Mitchell, C. A. (1995). Black mothers to sons: Juxtaposing African American literature with social practice. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Morrison, T. (1974). Sula. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education (updated). Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles: University of California Press (Original work published in 1984).

O’Reilly, A. (2012). Toni Morrison and motherhood: A politics of the heart. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Page, P. (1995). Dangerous freedom: Fusion and fragmentation in Toni Morrison’s novels. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Tronto, J. (1993). A political argument for an ethic of care. New York: Moral boundaries.