Selina And Camila

February 22, 2005

ENG 395Q

Selina and Camila: Finding a Sense of Self

A gentle hand reaches out; arms cradle a new arrival to this complex world. This simple gesture will come to signify a bond between two, the bond of a mother's love, the bond that can only be shared by mother and daughter. Life does not always follow the gentle streams and brooks of one's choosing. Typically, life goes raging down the rivers of its own. Many people do not realize however, that there is always to be a clearing in the turbulent waters and a hand extended to pull one out. The hand always reaches again and again ready to pull one up from a storm. Although it sometimes might be difficult to see, there is always an avenue of escape, a crutch to lean on time and time again. Whether it is through the spirit of the dead or the pulse of the living, a mother's love is always present.

Mothers and daughters have been written about, criticized, publicized, condemned, and praised for as long as the relationship has existed. These relationships can be complex, but also filled with compassion and love. They play an important role in determining who a daughter turns out to be as an adult. Each of the daughters in the novels "Brown Girl, Brownstones," by Paule Marshall, and "In the Name of Salome," by Julia Alvarez, faced the task of defining themselves and separating from their mother in quest for their own identity, similar to the task that most women find themselves having to face sometime during their lives.

Usually when a girl goes through adolescence, the relationship between her and her mother begin to change in many different ways, but can grow at the same time. Accompanied by raging hormones, mixed emotions and the often confused intellect of puberty, this development of independence is not always a smooth process. Consequenly, wars between a mother and daughter can often ravage a relationship as exemplified in the relationship between Selina and her mother, Silla, in the novel "Brown Girl, Brownstones." As a young child, much of the way Selina viewed herself was a result of all the messages and opinions that her mother embedded into her mind. As a black female growing up during World War II, Selina was poised between the expectations of her Bajan culture and family, while consequently confronted with the challenge of trying to fit into the "white-man's world.

Selina yearned to be a part of the modern, liberal American society and found it a struggle to define herself and open herself up to new cultures and points of view different from her own. Growing up, Selina began to question her culture, womanhood, and herself. It was while sifting through all the messages she had been fed about the way she should behave, how she should look, what she should do for a living, and who she should marry, that Selina struggled an internal war--fighting between who she was and who her mother wanted her to be. This was demonstrated after an argument with her mother, in which Selina contemplates, "If only there was a way to prove to them and herself how totally she disavowed their way! But how, when her own truth was so uncertain and untried? How, when she knew nothing of the world or its ways?" (225). For much of the novel, Selina remained unsure of the values she desired. However, she was certain that she did not want to fit the role which her culture and mainly her mother imposed on her.

At first, Selina could not bring herself to acknowledge her mother's heritage, having defined herself as "Deighton's Selina" in opposition to her mother and the Barbadian community. However, Selina discovered that she was very much like the mother she rebeled against, who was repeatedly represented as an embodiment of the Barbadian community. In an effort to raise funds to run away with her boyfriend and defy Silla and the community, Selina's behavior essentially epitomized Silla's character. Knowing the scholarship offered by the Barbadian Association was intended to fund schooling, Selina's devious decision to "be contrite, dedicated, the most willing worker they've ever had" to obtain the scholarship money exemplified her mother entirely (267). Even Selina's phrasing resembled the vow Silla made to obtain the money for Deighton's land, no matter what it took: "'I gon do it. . . . Some kind of way I gon do it'" (75). Selina's oppositional course brought her full circle and mirrored the ruthless pursuit of goals that was her mother's trademark. However, Selina couldn't heal the emptiness in her soul, discover who she wanted to be, and who she wanted become without falling apart in her mother's home.

Even though Selina knew that her home life did not define her and she also knew that someday she would have another home life, one where she would not be the daughter, and where she could have input on its establishment, Selina could not wait. Selina's desperate desire to break away from her constricting mother lured her into what she thought was a final stance in defiance. Ironically, it was through Selina's defiance of her mother that Selina became even more like Silla than ever. Selina even recognizes this and admits, "...you see I'm truly your child. Remember how you used to talk about how you left home and came here alone as a girl of eighteen and was your own woman? I used to love hearing that. And that's what I want. I want it!" (307). Despite everything, Silla's love for Selina didn't disappear, it just penetrated her heart so deeply that Selina felt overwhelmed. Alone at novel's end, having loved and lost, Selina leaves her home banished of the feeling of absence and nothingness. She gained a better understanding of the world she lived in and her search for identity revealed there was no one solution either of despair or happiness.

"In the Name of Salome," Camila set out on a quest of her inner questionings, a void she knew she possessed from the moment her mother, Salome, died. Throughout the novel, Camila lived her life vicariously in the shadow of Salome's greatness, a woman she knew only through poetry and the bits and pieces she uncovered and learned from family stories. Thus, Camila was