Mothers, You are Terrifying
"She didn't want this; she didn't want for Mom to know her like Mom had gotten to know Caroline and Mini; she didn't want to become these weird monosyllabic love-zombies like them, them with their wonderful families - how dare they complain so much, how dare they abandon them for this creature?"- Kim 68; 453-453
Ronnie's awareness throughout "Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying" shows a great distinction between Caroline and Mini's perspectives on their relationships with their families and birth mothers. Ronnie notes that the other two have been completely sucked into Mom's "love", suggesting they're lacking that guidance and support in their adopted families - which we can see throughout the story with Caroline's school and ballet pressure and Mini's parents' divorce. While these two are completely focused on skewed love from parental figures, Ronnie's focus lies in Alex, her adopted family brother. Although all three of them seem to lack this fully transparent, healthy, familial love, this difference in it being parental and between siblings makes a huge difference because the title focuses on parental relationships, not sibling relationships.
Additionally, Ronnie's use of wording, specifically "weird monosyllabic love-zombies", when describing Caroline and Mini shows this hive mentality where they all fall under Mom's influence at once, allowing Mom to invade and pop into each of their minds freely. All three of them know how Mom can enter their minds simultaneously, but only Ronnie seems to make this observation that their love for Mom is blind, naive, and mindless - like zombies only focused on their craving for love. However, this may be the case only because we see the story from Ronnie's perspective (with hints of Mom popping in, especially near the end), so judgment may be skewed in Ronnie's favor here. Also, describing Mom as a "creature" shows Ronnie's true disconnect from her suffocating "love", seeing her not as a true motherly figure, comparable to her human mothers, but as an other-worldly being coming to invade her life and mind.
The use of repeated semicolons and a dash suggests the racing of Ronnie's mind. Too many thoughts and sentences needed to fit into just one to get the desperation and rush of emotions out in one go. Ronnie seems like she's been keeping these thoughts in for a while, seeing as her friends have fully accepted Mom into their lives and she can't say much about it either, since Mom is always present. The sentence isn't a complete rush, however, because it would make more sense to jumble it all together without any or much punctuation. The commas add natural breaks in the sentence, allowing Ronnie and the reader to break up the many thoughts so they can be processed and digested one by one.
Mom's invasion of Ronnie's privacy is also noted when Ronnie says, "She didn't want this" in the beginning of the sentence. Seeing that the invasion of thoughts and privacy, along with the "love" from Mom is not consensual, Ronnie's relationship with Mom is better understood. Again, there's a clear distinction between her relationship with Mom compared with Mini and Caroline's relationships with Mom. Ronnie's strong opposition to Mom's persistent behaviors allows for a more interesting ending when Mom completely takes over Ronnie, breaking her relationship with Alex - the one relationship she yearned for even though she knew it was wrong. Ronnie's complete switch from rejecting Mom's "love" to falling into it completely (probably still not consensual), on top of digesting how Mom dropped Mini and Caroline from her life, shows just how unhealthy this "love" is. Unfortunately, the hope for finding true healthy love for Ronnie runs short...
You do a great job of analyzing this sentence! I especially like how you point out the extreme use of semicolons and dashes suggests Ronnie's quickly changing thoughts and emotions. I think you make a great point about the way Ronnie's differences from the other two girls is what ultimately leads to her "possession" by mother.
ReplyDeleteHi Sally, this was a great post! You do a fantastic job of highlighting the distinction between Ronnie's experience Mom because of her experiences with love are focused on that of her step-brother, while the other two girls have different perceptions because their experiences are parental based. I agree, that because Ronnie was so defiant of Mom controlling her at the beginning of the story and how it flipped at the end is a reflection of her other experiences with love in life, and is unhealthy. Good Job!
ReplyDeleteThis was a great analyzation, I hadn't really thought about the implications and effects of the punctuation in these sentences or the rest of the story before now. It definitely adds to the "rush of emotions" you described and her frantic nature when trying to keep Mom away from her thoughts. And I agree that Ronnie definitely seems to look down on Caroline and Mini for latching onto Mom and her love so quickly, or at least feel like she doesn't feel the need for that support as desperately as they do.
ReplyDeleteWow Sally, this was a really good post! I definitely agree with you that the stylistic use of punctuation throughout the story shows how quickly Ronnie's thoughts evolve and how tumultuous her emotions are. You do a great job of analyzing the sentence and supporting your points. Good work!
ReplyDeleteI really like how to focus in on the theme of love in this story. When each of the characters end up falling into this blind love, it exposes the true unhealthy nature of Mom's love. The love from Mom so quickly turns violent towards the girls, it causes tension between friends, and leads to the girl's lives being consumed. Unrealistic ideals and obsessions make the love toxic and unhealthy.
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