Mothering and Othering: Separation, Closeness, and the Mother Figure in John Gardners Grendel, Toni Morrisons Song of Solomon, and William Shakespeares Macbeth
This 6-page undergraduate essay examines mother figures in John Gardner’s Grendel, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth all share significant similarities. This essay suggests that Grendel’s mother, Ruth Foster Dead, and Lady Macduff are all relatively marginal but powerful characters. In the texts, the mother figures are closely associated with the development of the male protagonists of the narratives. The protagonists must negotiate their relationships with their mother in order to forge their own identities. In each case, the relationships depicted between mothers and sons are close and can be read from psychoanalytic approaches. However, while Gardner’s texts makes use of the mother-son relationship to approach ideas of humanity, Morrison uses the same relationship to express ideas of racial identity, while Shakespeare uses the mother-son relationship to address issues of political structure. In each text, the outcome of the mother-son relationship differs. In Morrison and Gardner’s text, the son returns to an altered but closer relationship with his mother. In Shakespeare’s text, however, death serves as the ultimate separation between mother and son.
