The Selfishness of Mother Figures

In the memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, she tells her story of being raised in poverty by a negligent mother. The short story "A Mother in Mannville” written by Marjorie Rawlings tells a bittersweet tale about Jerry, an orphan, and a female writer who befriends him. Both stories illuminate the relationship between a child and a mother figure. In this essay, I want to focus on the selfishness of these  two mother figures, Rosemary in The Glass Castle and the writer in “A Mother in Mannville”.

What kind of characteristics can be judged as selfishness? If a mother knows nothing about her child and doesn't carry her responsibility at all, then she can be judged as a selfish mother undoubtably.

To begin with, we can see easily the cold attitudes of these women toward the children in the very beginnings of the two stories. In The Glass Castle, Rosemary was painting and singing in her room while her three-year-old daughter Jeannette was cooking hot dogs by herself in the kitchen. What’s worse, after the accident in which Jeannette was burned, Rosemary explained to the neighbor “in an unnaturally calm voice” what had happened. If she really cared about her daughter, she would have been upset. Obviously, she is a selfish and irresponsible woman who only cared about herself. In the beginning of “A Mother in Mannville” the female writer had a boy coming from the orphanage to help her chop wood. That boy was Jerry. When she saw the small build of Jerry, she said, “You? But you’re small.” And then she asked Jerry to work rudely, “Go ahead and see what you can do.” She was well into her work at that time and didn’t want to talk more. It is not proper and polite to treat a poor orphan who came to do some favors in this way. All the writer cared about was her own work. In that sense, she is also selfish.

Moreover, as the stories go on, we can see more similarities. Neither of the women understand what the children want. In the Glass of Castle, when Rosemary found Jeannette was eating chewing gum, she disapproved of it and said “I am your mother, and I should have a say in how you’re raised.” She knew that she was her mom, but she never carried her responsibilities to cook for her and never knew how happy Jeanette was when she was eating chewing gum. Another obvious proof is she entered Jeanette’s name in a raffle and won a helicopter ride, but she took the ride before telling Jeanette, so Jeanette got very disappointed at that time, but she didn’t care at all. And although the writer in “A Mother in Mannville” fell in love with Jerry and wanted to care for Jerry in the middle of the short story, she still didn’t understand Jerry well even in the close relationship. What Jerry wanted was a mother figure to rely on. That’s why he came everyday and stayed to talk, and why his face shone when talking about his imaginary mom. However the writer thought little about that. When she heard that Jerry had a mom, she felt shocked and hurt. She was jealous of the mom and then all she thought about was getting relief from her ache, “Mexico immediately”, “ Then Alaska”, “After that, heaven knew what or where.” When it came to Jerry, the writer thought “It was none of my concern.” From this we can easily see that the writer didn’t understand Jerry at all.

Last but not least, at the end of two works, both mother figures showed the same selfishness as they showed in the very beginning. It is circuitous . In the Glass Castle, when Jeanette came back home from the hospital, she felt hungry but Rosemary was at work on a painting as usual, so she had to cook by herself still again despite the fear she must have had of the stove. Rosemary didn’t feel ashamed of herself and even thought it was good for Jeanette. In "A Mother in Mannville", the writer told Jerry the message she would leave in a direct and simple way, “I am leaving tomorrow”, without any reasons or comforts. She didn’t imagine how sad Jerry would be after he heard that. She treated Jerry just as indifferently as when they first met each other.

   In our conventional impression, mother figures should be thoughtful to children and understand children well. However from Rosemary and the writer’s actions and words, we can see the same selfishness. They were rude and indifferent in the beginning, were blunt in the close relationship and returned to the same indifference in the end.