Bella’s guilt caused by her mother’s fear of loneliness has left her short of any male relations. She cannot escape the wrath of her mother, and continually surrenders to her mother's will. Also, Bella has felt she cannot start her own relationship because her mother, in an effort to protect her living children, she has trained them not to feel by hardening them with punishments such as locking them in a closet or beating them with her cane” (Bloom, Harold. “List of characters in Lost in Yonkers. p67-68).
Hair spray? (Oates 323) You don’t see your sister using that junk.” Connie hated when her mother would do this. She would say she hated her mother and wish she were dead. But when she has to make a decision on whether to jeopardize her own life or her mother’s, she chooses to put hers in jeopardy. When it came to describing her sister June, Connie thought of her as just a 24 year old secretary who still lives at home with her parents.
Mama then goes on to describe how nervous Maggie will be until her sister leaves, “standing hopelessly in corners”, “eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe.” She then goes onto reminisce about a dream she had in which she and her daughter Dee, were reunited on a talk show. During this Mama, reveals how she knows her physical appearance is less than desirable but she makes no apologies for being a, “big-boned woman with rough, man working hands.” The two daughters are like night and day when compared to one another. When the reader first meets Maggie, she is portrayed as shy, awkward and self-conscious do to the scars she received when
Ingrid keeps on having dates with Barry until Barry starts putting Ingrid into this oblivious road and soon Barry is nowhere to be found. Ingrid is so desperate and worried and as always Astrid is on the back, just watching her mother’s mistakes. Ingrid blind by love goes on a quest to look for Barry and she finds him at his house and they
Connie rightfully believes her mother is jealous of her. “Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn‘t much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it ‘Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?’ she would say.” Connie’s mother certainly does not help the relationship by acting jealous of her daughter, she is simply adding fuel to the fire. Connie had somewhat of a split personality.
Knowledge is not always power because the more you know does not necessarily mean you understand what you have learned. In the short story “Everyday Use”, education seemed to make a rift in the relationship not only between the mother and the daughter, but also between the sisters. Dee was one to always try and outsmart her family members always seeking answers knowing no one knew. It was mama who eventually got the community together to help send Dee to school so her daughter would be happy and satisfied. The values of heritage seem to have been lost with the gain of knowledge when Dee has gone to college.
This book is about a girl named Maleeka. She is bullied because of her very dark skin. Maleeka soon becomes ashamed of her own self. She is also teased about the clothes her mom makes for her, since her father died and they now are poor. So Maleeka turns to Charlese Jones, a girl who you don't mess with and who always wants to be in control.
Gwen is also in a very irrational nation as she came from a poor and always is stressed. Her bad temper has led her to her own distinctive world. In the play, Away, Gwen is very stereotyping against Tom and had called him ‘Motorbikes, Tattoos, Drinks. A sad dirty life’ .She calls him this because he is from a very country family but Meg only thinks of Tom as a friend and due to Gwen’s negative opinion towards Tom creates a barrier between the mother and daughter. During Act I, Scene 2, Gwen asks for a ‘Bex’ which is a medicine like panadol and the Bex symbolises her domestic world by only more wealthy people are able to use Bex.
Maggie is envious of her sisters looks and feels overshadow by her. She displays this by acting like a wallflower the whole time her sister Dee is present. However, it is Dee who does not know the meaning of the word "no" that really exhibits her sentiments of jealousy and frustration when their mother prohibits her from taking Maggie's quilt. Dee insults her sister by saying that she'd be "backwards enough to put them to every day use." That gives you a glimpse as to what Dee thinks of her sister and how she handles herself when she feels
When these traits did not surface, Jing-Mei began to realize she did not have these traits and started to feel internally inferior. She slowly started to resent her mother’s continual control over her decisions and went in a different direction than her mother wanted her too. In Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds”, the dialogue Tan includes within Jing-Mei’s flashback demonstrates that conflict and resentment can occur when not allowing your child to take his/her own path. In the beginning of the flashback, Jing-Mei’s mother is shown to be trying to control and dominate her daughter’s life. When she moved away from China, Jing-Mei’s mother had a vision that in America, you could be anything that you wanted to be.