Morrison 1

lyrics here

Don’t let this pristine image fool you; I did all I could to wreck havoc on the neat lawns of the courthouses

I grew up in an apartment complex in Oxford, Mississippi, where other young Chinese emigrants settled with their children. Despite the fact that I was immensely homesick for China, I settled in comfortably. I reveled in the magnolia trees of Oxford, delighted in the other neighborhood children, and was running rogue and rampant through the town by the time I reached my sixth birthday. How odd that when I think of home, and the child I was, that I should think of Oxford, and not China. We find solace in times of strife in our community, for they help shape us into the humans we are today. It is imperative to create some sense of place, just as the “Renting blacks cast furtive glances at these owned yards and porches, and made firmer commitments to buy themselves ‘some nice little old place.’” (Morrison, 18)

I will always associate my childhood with magnolia trees

Morrison’s narrator also explains the terror that came with certain places, such as the outdoors. “Outdoors, we knew, was the real terror of life. The threat of being outdoors surfaced frequently in those days…Outdoors was the end of something, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining and complementing our metaphysical condition.” (Morrison, 17) Our surroundings have a tremendous impact on us, and just as Alice Walker remembers how “it was quite wonderful to pick a few apples, or collect those that had fallen to the ground overnight” (X321), many will think of their own backyards, the adventures they went on with pets, and the feeling they got the first time they looked at the sky. The environment in which we grow up serves as a community, a place where we belong.

Another important sector of community is family, and the narrator indicates the importance of cohesiveness, especially in such a busy and confused household. She refers to “The three of us, Pecola, Frieda, and I…” (Morrison, 23) often, and one can tell that she used this as a shell against the hardships she was facing in the outside world.

The bond between a mother and her child is unexplainable

“And in the night, when my coughing was dry and tough, feet padded into the room, hands repined the flannel, readjusted the quilt, and rested a moment on my forehead. So when I think of autumn, I think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die.” (Morrison, 12) Just as the narrator’s mother makes a deep impression on her, so did my own mother (and I’m sure many mothers of this world) with her nurturing. I often think of those nights in my youth when I was overcome with the urge to vomit. I would call out to my mother in the night and she would always come, and before I could even get out the words, “I think I’m going to throw up”, she would hold out her hands to catch the projectiles. And as I was hurling my insides out, eyes stinging, I recall being astounded at the love my mother had for me, enough for her to plunge without doubt to catch my own disgusting vomit. The depth of my mother’s love, from these actions, seemed to draw from a never-ending well.