Inner Strength

I’m not a mother. I have no wish to be a mother, and certainly little to no maternal instinct. The best I can drum up when it comes to maternal instinct is dealing with drunken friends, and my two small nieces. I know nothing about feeling a child growing within yourself, bringing that child into the world, or raising that child and forming their moral attitudes and personal beliefs. Now with that disclaimer aside I am a daughter, and sometimes a very troubling one. My mother never had to deal with me whining for clothes or makeup privileges, and she certainly never listened to me beg for a pony. Instead my mother had to deal with me raising hell with the boys in the neighborhood, cursing out my Girl Scout’s troop leader, and being overly independent even at a risk to my own health. Despite all the lectures, and all the stress, my mother loved me, and every time I did something good she would point out how much of herself she saw in me. Bone and Anney have a somewhat different problem. My mother saw herself as a contributor to my laudable character aspects, but Anney sees within Bone the person she wants to be instead of the person she is or was. Bone is a strong character, and strong in a way Anney can almost never hope to achieve or reproduce. Bone is strong internally, and in the end she proves unbreakable. There’s little question that Anney’s character is weak in many ways. She fails at the primary task of motherhood, protecting your child, and she fails at being able to stand as an independent and self-owned person. Bone seems to lack that problem from birth. She is constantly redefining herself, and she learns from those around her what kind of person she wants to be. She allows others to give her input, but her ultimate decision is her own. With or without Daddy Glenn’s actions Bone is a force unto herself, and Anney can only long for that kind of strength, and feel shame that it is her daughter that possesses it and not herself. Bastard out of Carolina paints a vivid portrait of Bone’s struggle to become the kind of person she would want to call a friend. It is this struggle that makes Bone such a wonderful character, and it is this struggle that makes for a story. We may never know where Bone’s strength came from, but we got to her see her develop and refine it, and that made a fine story indeed.