Abstract:

In the in-class essay, I analyze the relationship between Bad and the narrator using the baby as a metaphor and symbol. I draw connections between the way the narrator reacts and interacts with the baby and the way a person in an unhealthy and destructive relationship does. There are a lot of parallels, and it brings up a very interesting argument about why Mechado chose to add the baby to this story.

In the story Mothers, the narrator’s inner thoughts and feelings are mainly connected to her partnership with Bad. Although there is a presence of a “baby,” we see the narrator almost entirely in a world she creates in her head, centered around her relationship with bad. As the story unfolds, the more confused and disorganized the narrator becomes. Almost as if she is reliving her relationship with Bad. The more attached to the baby she is throughout the story, the more she begins to unravel (all her issues and traumas). The baby is trauma personified. Her inner monologue brought on by the baby’s presence tells us exactly how she and Bad’s relationship has left her wounded. Her interactions with the baby highlight and bring out everything that she’s internalized throughout her relationship with bad. 

As the story begins, Bad can clearly be seen not taking no for an answer or allowing the narrator to make any kind of decision in the matter of leaving the baby. She dismisses the narrator and leaves without explaining anything or saying goodbye. This already lets readers know exactly what kind of partnership the two had with each other. The narrator was not expecting the baby and doesn’t even know the baby’s name. The baby is just a part of her and Bad that will now forever exist. This detail makes a very important statement about relationships and how they affect people who are involved in them. Although the couple cannot have a physical baby together biologically, they symbolically do. The baby represents the physical wound a relationship can leave on a person. Something they cannot shake that stays with them forever. Something they have to bring with them into every new relationship they enter. A part of the story that stands out is “but then Bad is gone, and for once I am not alone, after.” The narrator is grieving. She is used to Bad leaving her but now she’s not left alone, which could signify her facing these issues and wounds head-on. Her awareness of them making her feel as if she is no longer alone anymore.

The narrator’s instability and way of thinking paint an extremely confusing and hazy picture for readers. In a way, it mimics the feeling of being deep into an unhealthy relationship. The story almost entirely takes place in a fantasy world. We get thrown around from scenarios of the narrator’s creation to “real life,” but we don’t actually know if that’s true. Reality and fantasy are very much blurred and blended. This makes a statement about relationships and how, at times, they could be built from one’s fantasy or hopes rather than reality. In the story, the narrator says, “I believe in a world where impossible things happen. Where love can outstrip brutality, can neutralize it, as though it never was, or transform it into something new and more beautiful. Where love can outdo nature.” The narrator’s belief in love is so strong that she’s willing to take a lot of the ugly. Which is clearly shown by the way Bad treated her and the way she continued to try to love Bad even harder after. Saying, “I love you,” I murmured while asleep, while awake, into her hair, into her neck. “Please don’t call me that,” I reminded her. “I would never talk like that to you.” In partnerships, sometimes there is an extreme imbalance of responsibility. That is what creates an unhealthy relationship dynamic. The narrator was left responsible for both Bad’s and her own emotional baggage. Always appeasing and tiptoeing, trying to keep Bad happy instead of also thinking of their own feelings.

The baby was birthed by Bad and given away involuntarily to the narrator. The narrator struggles with the baby. She loves it because it is a product of bad, but it also causes a lot of anxiety and anguish. Similar to her relationship with Bad. A baby is forever, just as trauma is. The baby makes an important statement and personifies what it can be like to be in a relationship that is hard to leave, but leaves you with a permanent scar that you are left to take after once you finally leave. Taking care of a baby can be compared to being the person being abused in a relationship. A baby might cry at the slightest sound or inconvenience and make a fuss over nothing. You are left to take care of its emotions, often forgetting about your own. Much like a toxic relationship. The narrator remembers a moment in her relationship, she says, “She was all bone and muscle and skin and light and laughter one minute and then a tornado the next, a shadow passing over her face like a solar eclipse. My head cracked the plaster. Light sparked behind my eyes.” The sudden changes in Bad’s emotions and having to take that in while in a partnership can feel like taking care of a baby. After this happens, the narrator says she steps into the shower and just drowns the sounds out. Although she can just leave, the love she has for bad makes her feel as if she has no choice but to stay, almost as if she is required to take care of her and her feelings even when she is being abused. She does the same with the baby. Even though it cries and doesn’t let her sleep, and she expresses some kind of discomfort from its presence, she loves it. Just as she loved Bad. 

Mothers highlights the dynamic between the abused and the abuser in an unhealthy relationship. It does so in an interesting way by removing the physical presence of the abuser (Bad) and instead making the baby somewhat of an essence of personification or the abuse the narrator experienced while in a relationship with Bad. It’s very interesting how, without giving away too much detail, Machado is able to make readers understand her point about the effects of a toxic relationship on a person. The almost tangible scars it leaves behind. Through the narrator’s inner monologue and her attitude towards the baby, we can make direct inferences about the dynamic of her relationship.