Comparing Motherhood In Addie Bundren, Sethe, And Medea

Motherhood can be a great honor and privilege to those who choose to be a mother. It can alter lives and change the basis of a woman’s world, as she creates life out of her own blood and flesh and becomes exposed to the purest form of love. Yet throughout history, motherhood has been warped; it is not always a choice for a woman to delight in and explore, it is sometimes forced upon her or used against her, making her a victim of her own womanhood. Although Addie Bundren, Sethe, and Medea made mistakes, some unforgivable, they were all victims of motherhood. From the moment they were inducted into motherhood, they were destined to fail, as their circumstances never boasted of success. They must not be judged just as we would judge an average
As a former slave and a black woman, Sethe’s only “thing” is her children. They are the only “things” she can truly possess and adore. She is not allowed a home, a job, or even freedom to herself, but at the end of the day, she knows her children are hers. No man or legislation can destroy or deny their blood bond. However, this is a dangerous relationship for her to have. Sethe’s children can easily be snatched away from her for she is not free in the eye of the law or to white Americans. Additionally, as a mother, she is automatically put into a position of vulnerability when her children are threatened because of the deeper love she holds for them. Combining these two components, she will be incredibly destructive when her children are put in harm’s way, there is no chance of her remaining calm and she shouldn’t be expected to be calm. However, when she does attempt to murder her children in order to save them, she is demonized and seen as a monster, when she is the victim in the situation. The only things that belonged to her, the best things that she produced were moments away from being seized from her grasp and tossed into slavery, where they’d be abused and exploited. She was not reveling in her decision to murder her children, she was distraught and hurting beyond an average human’s emotional capacity. The only thing she knew would
Medea’s relationship to Jason, as a Middle Eastern woman, provides for disaster if broken, for it is made up of Medea’s excessive sacrifices to be with a man of another race. She entered the relationship fully aware of the obstacles she’d encounter to be with Jason and of the fact that even if they managed to be together, the relationship would be illegitimate. This implies that her love for him was deep, clearly, she’d do whatever to be with him, but it makes her vulnerable if this love is tossed away. To lose Jason after all her efforts, such as “betraying [her] father for him, killing [her] brother, [and] making [her] own land hate [her] forever,” would prove that all of that was for nothing and that he never saw her the way she saw him. As with Addie and Sethe, her reaction is natural, her entire life was disrupted when Jason divorces her and thus her capacity to be a good mother is gone. She cannot be expected to be a good mother when all her life’s work is being unraveled before her eyes; she will lash out and attempt to regain a sense of herself. In the sorrow that Jason creates, Medea attempts to create the same sorrow for him and this plan incorporates killing their children. It is barbaric and vile, but it is irrational to label Medea as a bad mother for those murders. All her life before her, Medea was striving towards greatness, to