Right now in the book, Julia (as a adult) remembers back to the time when she was about to give birth herself to her first child, that her mom gave her a notebook that she had kept during her pregnancy with julia and throughout her childhood. Ones first though is; oh thats nice of her mother to do, give her a little heads up for what's to come right? No, in this book are accounts of her dreams, "In another dream she drowned the baby in the bathtub and then went to a party where she had a lot of fun"(44). This quote from her mothers notebook is not only creepy but also sad that she could think of her own baby that she created like that, but then it is no surprise because the reader can infer that the only reason why Julia's mother wanted a baby so bad(which she had) was to keep her marriage together, or to possibly make her husband love her more and keep him from being unfaithful. In the notebook that Julia is given, her mother writes just after Julia's 1st birthday about how she is really gonna take motherhood on she states, "Must quickly learn to master the problems of motherhood in the minimum of time, because I am not one of those silly women who make babies a full time job. I am an artist first and a mother second--only to fulfill myself as an artist" (45). Here this shows her mother's priorities as a mother and her work and is a clearly a unfit mother. what this must of felt for Julia to read was hard, not that she probably already had an idea that this is how she thought but to have the proof before her and that her mothers feelings had been this way since birth. Her mother didn't even get a chance to know her or give her the chance to be bad.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Just the Three of us #4
In this memoir by Julia Blackburn the reader continues to see Julia's problems and where they came from. From the start of the book I remember thinking that it was her dad, her dad was mostly the main reason she had so many issues. Now that I am significantly farther in the book, I can see now that her mother is definitely the main reason. Her mother had problems herself and didn't try to hide them from her daughter.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The relationship between Julia and her mother sounds really unhealthy to me. I am shocked that Julia's mother would give Julia a diary that recounts the unhappiness that her mother felt about having a child. It makes me suspect that Julia's mother is still unhappy with her decision to have a child, even after Julia has reached adulthood. If Julia's mother had reconciled herself with her decision to have a child and wanted to move on from the unhappiness that having a child brought her, it would be more logical not to revisit that unhappiness. However, it's also possible that Julia's mother thought that talking about the issue with Julia would help them both heal from the negative experiences of Julia's childhood. Based on what I've read here, Julia's mother seems to demonstrate that some people have children for the wrong motivations, and spend a lot of time trying to make up for their mistakes.
My lord. Julia's mother is definitely messed up. I understand you want to be close to your daughter in all,but giving her a notebook with passages of dark and depressing things such as her mom having dreams of drowning her is scary. That should be a red flag.I want to see what comes next,this sounds really good.
Post a Comment