Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Toni Morisson's 'Beloved' and Sherley Ann Williams' 'Dessa Rose' / Motherhood & Maternalism. Have the paper e-mailed to you 24/7/365.
Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page paper comparing and contrasting the protagonists' ability to assume the responsibilities of motherhood. The paper argues that Because the slave does not have any autonomy of her own, she cannot function in a typical maternal relationship to a dependent child; therefore, she needs to either break out of her cycle of submission, or have someone else to do her mothering for her. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Beldessa.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
it is excruciating for Sethe, who considers her children, particularly her daughters, a physical part of her body and soul. And yet this attitude becomes impossible in the context of
slavery, for slaves are themselves property -- nothing belongs to them. We can see the same dynamic at work in Sherley Anne Williams Dessa Rose, and in fact in any
number of actual and fictionalized "slave narratives" arising from that dreadful time in American history. Under the institution of slavery, an enslaved womans children -- the ones she has given
birth to and nursed and watched through the night -- belong to her owners and can be sold by those owners at any time. Slavery intrudes upon natures closed circle,
in many cases rendering an appropriate expression of maternalism impossible. Sethe feels so strongly about the primacy of the maternal bond, not because she herself had this type of bond
with her own mother, but because she didnt. Typically, a slave woman was only allowed a few weeks to nurse her child after the childs birth, because a reliable means
of making and preserving formula was not available, and nursing was the only way that the survival of the child -- a future source of profit for the slave owners
-- could be guaranteed. Then Sethes mother had to return to the fields, and Sethe would be nursed -- insufficiently -- by the white childrens wet-nurse, after the white children
had their fill. The all-critical maternal bond, however, had been broken, and deliberately so. Sethe, as a child, has had so little contact with her mother that she actually does
not recognize her until she is pointed out in the field. When Sethe has children of her own, she makes a vow she cannot keep; she swears her children will
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