Deformed Love

申 蓉

Abstract:Focusing on analyzing the deformed love of Elizabeth towards her son George,this paper argues that it was her unsatisfied desires in her girlhood that caused her strange behaviorand abnormal love towards her son.

Key words: Mother, deformed love, unsatisfied desires

中圖分类号:I254 文献标识码:A 文章编号:1009-8283(2010)07-0216-01

Written by Sherwood Anderson, a prominent modern writer in America, Mother was a typical modern novel revealing that people were isolated and alienated because of the "modern life". Elizabeth Willard, the leading character in Mother, was such a deformed woman whose tragic fate was triggered by the cruel modern environment.

Elizabeth inherited a hotel from her father; however, due to the prosperity of modern business society, it was unprofitable and deteriorated day by day, which can be known from the description of faded wall-paper and the ragged carpets. Elizabeth married to Tom Willard, a daydreamer of life with strong passion for politics. There was no love but strong hatred between them. Tom cursed Elizabeth as a failure and shame to his life. Likewise, Elizabeth resented him bitterly, but she devotedly loved her son, George Willard. The tragedy is that her aspiration to the love of George was shattered by lack of communication.

Actually, the communication between Elizabeth and George was outwardly a formal thing without meaning. In her son's presence, Elizabeth was timid and reserved while the silence made George feel awkward and confused. All these vividly reflected the deformation of modern people, on one hand, in their hearts rooted intensive emotions; on the other hand, they could not unleash them, thus fermenting the loneliness and alienation of life. No wonder the scene in which a greedy cat was chased by a furious baker made Elizabeth think of her own life, terrible in its vividness.

It seemed as though Elizabeth was a weird mother who loved her son in a distorted way. But if we dig deeper, this deformed love could be explained and understood as the novel unveiled the reason as "Between Elizabeth and her son George there was a deep unexpressed bond of sympathy, based on a girlhood dream that had long ago died."

In her girlhood, Elizabeth was an energetic person whose restlessness was expressed in two ways. One is that she dreamed of becoming an actress, wandering around the world, meeting new people and broadening her eyes. The other is that she continuously dated young men and had close relationship with them. At that time, though Elizabeth was disdained by villagers, she lived a happy life and was a normal person. But later all her wonderful fantasies were stifled by the dull life in the small town. It is reasonable that she dumped all her suppressed desires upon her son George.

Firstly, Elizabeth wanted George to go outside the small town and pursue a new kind of life which was completely different from hers. She often prayed to God, "If I am dead and see him becoming a meaningless drab figure like myself, I will come back." This desire was so formidable that when Tom compelled George to live a life as he had planned, Elizabeth's hatred for him was personified and came to the point at which she could not contain any more. Despite of her illness, she rightly emerged vigorously with scissors in her hand, determined to kill Tom.

Secondly, Elizabeth's desire was reflected by her expectation of George to date girls like a real man. Once she was ill, George did not come to visit her, she was rather anxious and told herself: "Perhaps he has now begun to walk about in the evening with girls." Though the communication between the mother and her son was awkwardly rare and hardly meaningful, Elizabeth always told George, "I think you had better go out among the boys. You are too much indoors."

From the above two examples, Elizabeth's abnormal love for her son George is clearly displayed and could be understood by us readers. In brief, the novel Mother reveals that people lose their normal nature and become deformed under the influence of modern life.

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