Abstract:
This research explores the interconnectivity amongst Harriet Wilson‘s Our
Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859), Harriet Jacobs‘
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Alice Walker‘s The Color Purple
(1982), and Toni Morrison‘s Beloved (1987) as they explore the indomitable
nature of the maternal inclination which cuts across boundaries and time in
African-American history. This exploration is a fraction of the discourses by
African-American women in their attempt to portray black women who defy
all odds in order to maintain their status as mothers. Most literature assumes
motherhood as being interchangeable with mothering. However, African-
American feminists assert that mothering is more empowering and without
patriarchal influence for the woman than motherhood. This research focuses
on the attempt by African-American women writers in narrating the mothering
experiences of black women during slavery, flight and freedom. Employing
psychoanalytic feminism and critical race theory, I attempt to trace the
mothering nature of black women characters in the four novels to ascertain
how the events in their lives represented or misrepresented their mothering
disposition and how this influenced their families and their individuality. I
conclude that ‗mothering and ‗motherhood‘ have various implications through
the use of tropes such as imagery, characterisation, amongst others, for
African-American women. Secondly, there exist a representation and
misrepresentation in the mothering disposition of black women characters, and
most importantly, this study attempts to provide a new terminology
‗motherhate‘.
