Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night - Literature review Example

Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night Sindiwe Magona, a prolific writer has produced some commendable work in the world of literature and has managed to leave a mark on her reader’s mind with her outstanding writing skills. She is without a doubt an award-winning author and is the most respected South African authors of all time. She has been well known for her advocacies of woman’s rights in the form of her literary work. One of her such exceptional work is the novel ‘Living, Lying and loving awake at night’ and a notable fact about this literary piece is that it made it’s way to the Top 12 of the ‘Best 100 African Books’ of the 20th century. Magona’s novel ‘Living, Loving and Lying awake at night’ is therefore an exemplary collection of interlinked short stories. Each of her tales shed light on the experiences of underprivileged women of South Africa. Magona brilliantly describes the mixed feelings of an impoverished mother, who is not able to make ends meet and feed her children on her own. Empowering in its own right, the book captures the feelings of what a mother of five goes through. A mother subjected to extreme poverty, a non-caring husband who is completely oblivious of his duties towards his family and a mother-in-law, whom she never could get along with. She cooks food for her children, not knowing if there would be another opportunity for them to have a morsel. Every day is a challenge and ‘living life everyday as it comes’, best explains her state of mind. The long-standing concept of mothering has a very deep meaning and it brings along with it a plethora of challenging and demanding decisions for a mother to make. The pain of child-bearing to child-rearing is an exceptionally complicated task at a woman's hand and doing all this without the husband's support is all the more toilsome. Magona’s character passes through the same ordeal of bringing up her little children all by herself. The most difficult of the decisions for the mother, however, was to abandon her children not because she wanted to run away from her responsibilities but in order to look for work so that she could provide for her family. Therefore, the events leading up to mothering can have a great impact on the effects on the children as well as the mother, as all these are inter-woven with each other. With reference to the woman being portrayed in the novel, she was left with no other option than to flee in the middle of the night leaving behind five children. She did this with a heavy heart only with the hopes that her children will be taken care of by her mother-in-law in her absence because she failed to feed them. The only thought that lingered over her mind all the time was where she will get the meals for her children. Since the very thought of letting her children suffer and die of hunger sent shivers down her spine. Hence, the unconditional love of a mother is clearly portrayed by the author in this novel where at every instance all she cares about is to provide for her children despite of the fact that her own health was deteriorating. Her sole mission in life was to provide what was best for her children, and she was even willing to go to a far away place in the absence of her children, to provide them a better life growing up. Through the course of the novel, we see a mother’s plight at every stage. Firstly by bearing the brunt of bringing up all children on her own from doing the household chores to looking after each one of her children without any support from family or friends. Secondly, the decision of leaving behind her children under her mother-in-law’s supervision who never bothered to look after them in her presence. Several questions kept revolving around her head; even before she could come up with an answer another question thrust itself into her mind. This made the distressing decision all the more complicated. Since a loving mother would never walk out on her children, but the burden of not being able to feed them was intolerable. Therefore, out of sheer desperation she decides to take such a hurtful step. For such a choice would be extremely grievous for any mother who is attached to her children. As for almost all women this is one bond that is unbreakable. Leaving behind her children will always hit her hard like a crushing blow since she wouldn’t be able to live and cherish the beautiful memories of watching one’s child grow. Thus, Magona beautifully describes the sorrow of a destitute mother who went through such traumatic circumstances in the hopes of giving her children a better life. Such a selfless act can only be portrayed by the role model figure of a devoted mother. No man’s love can be compared to a mother’s absolute affection for her children, who is ready to give up all to provide comfort and care to her young ones. Since according to general belief, it is always in the child’s best interest to be under constant love and protection of the mother. No one else would be able to take care of your child as well as the mother herself. Magona’s story speaks about a mother who makes the toughest decision of her life in deciding how to leave behind her children to look for work in the city. Only if her husband had supported her financially, the woman would have been never forced to take such a step. She could no longer rely on herself for keeping her children from starving. The writer has managed to describe a mother’s mixed and conflicting emotions of hesitation, pain and ambiguity commendably well. Where she contemplates the different possibilities, all of them depressing, about how to go about ensuring her children’s survival, she comes to the conclusion that she would have to leave them. This horrifying thought, all the more unspeakable because her youngest child was still nursing, took root in her mind as the only option available to her, since all others seemed useless. What guides her is a controversial thought, controversial because not everyone would agree with that thought. The thought was, “To be a good mother I must leave”. (Magona, 1994, p. 6) Not many people would agree that leaving five children to the care of their grandmother, who had never shown any motherly inclination towards them, would constitute being a good mother. What kind of a mother would just leave her children like that, in the middle of the night no less, without saying goodbye or explaining to them the reason of her abandoning them this way. Only later does one realize that she hadn’t really abandoned her children; she had actually made the biggest personal sacrifice a mother could ever make, that of leaving her children to the care of another. This she did so she could provide for them, to make sure they had enough money to get by every day without worrying about where their next meal would come from. She took a job as a maid in a white household to ensure that her children were being fed, all the while hoping that their other needs would be seen to by their grandmother. That was a fanciful hope on the mother’s part, since no one can do as good a job of looking after kids as their own mother can. But that is the price she had to pay for making sure that her children’s needs were being looked after. The effect of such an act by a mother leaves great psychological impact on the mother as well as the children. Thus, posing great threat to the concept of mothering and the effects it might have on the children if they are to face such a scenario. Therefore, the cause of mothering highly depends on a number of other factors that directly or indirectly influence the behavior of the mother. If we take a look at the woman’s case as depicted in the novel, it actually provides a very powerful insight to the reader. The circumstances under which a single mother who leaves to earn a living for her children depends only on her husband who is supposed to be the breadwinner for the family, or so is generally believed. When men completely shrug off their responsibilities of providing for their families women are forced into taking such desperate measures leaving her family life dwindling. Consequently, all this leads to a deep-rooted psychological impact on the mother and her children and their family unit as a whole. Separation from children from a mother’s perspective can be characterized by the lasting and inducing symptoms of sorrow, grief, depression and despair which are all associated with the sense of loss. Thus, this can be the most stressful phase of life for any mother who is emotionally attached to her children, and so was the case of the character portrayed in Magona’s tale. Thus coping with it will be a highly traumatic challenge for the mother as well as her children. Similarly, when a mother departs, her children also go through life-altering transitions. They lose the familial identity associated with mother-child relationship. This in turn makes them socially and emotionally vulnerable. Children need constant love and support from their parents and in this case, they were deprived of both. Their father worked in a mine and he seems to have completely forgotten about them when he was there. He didn’t even show much interest in them when he used to get back and treated his wife as a sex machine. The woman’s husband’s relation with his own mother was cold too, where he didn’t care about her too. A woman who brought him up and provided for him didn’t seem to be of any importance to him. Thus, the novel depicts the difference between maternal and paternal affection. Maternal affection supersedes paternal love as the mother gives it all up even her own comfort for her children. Whereas, the selfish father was oblivious of his children’s suffering. Not to forget the fact that it was because of him that they came to this world and it was solely his duty to look after them. Though Magona’s novel is a work of fiction it surely has great deal of truth hidden in each of her stories depicting the hardships that women fact in South Africa because of a number of reasons. The character of a mother being the strongest in all of the stories narrated in the novel. A mother who is struggling hard everyday to make both ends meet and trying to stay strong even in times of great need. A mother always ensures that her child gets to live in an environment where he/she is provided with the basic physical and material needs for food, shelter and clothing. A mother showers her children with love and affection and has a continuous relationship of constant attention and care required for the child. A mother is the only person who treats her children as special, stimulates and nurtures them at the same time. Ideally, children thrive when they have a mother who cares for them deeply and guides them appropriately throughout. Unfortunately, the mother of Magona’s story had to leave her children behind to earn for them to provide them with the basic necessities of life. Had to not taken this step, her children might have starved to death and there was no source of income from elsewhere. Although, motherhood is always envisioned as the saintly woman who tirelessly cares for her brood of children and completely devoted herself to them. The woman knew for a fact that her act of disappearing would be judged by the society, neighborhood and the relatives harshly. Still, she abandons her children without paying much heed to how her decision might leave a lasting mark on her own character. As the people might have leaded to believe that the woman night have fled for her own selfish motives of eloping with a lover or hiding an illicit pregnancy. People fail to take notice of the father’s complete negligence of his responsibilities towards his family unit. No one would’ve paid the slightest of attention to the mother’s trauma at that instance. The mother went through chronic feelings of depression, helplessness and worthlessness with a lack of hope from anywhere. Her top most priority was her hungry children who needed to be fed even if that cost her to be far away from them. Sadly, this abandonment did not only leave the mother with a left a long-lasting and crushing blow but also left her children with numerous questions lingering over their innocent minds. In this case, the children had a missing fatherly figure and the abandonment of the mother would have been a major setback in their lives. Maternal abandonment leaves children with significant mental, physical and emotional repercussions. It not only deprives the child of the motherly love and affection but adversely affects his self-esteem and grieves over the loss. The children go through a series of conflicting emotions which are characterized by shock, confusion and fears. These stressors collectively can have negative consequences on their adulthood. However, the helpless and destitute mother achingly decided to flee in hopes of providing for them in such trying times. Her novel has stark resemblance to reality and she manages to convey each of her stories laudably well encouraging her readers to look at different perspectives with open eyes. She talks about a woman in an apartheid society who leaves home and her children to look for work. She accomplishes all this by drawing attention of her readers to a world which not many would bother, let alone desire, looking into with her strong descriptions and concise writing style. Sindiwe Magona provides the account of the difficulties a mother has to go through suffering injustices, loss, pain to such an extent that she takes up the job of a servant – a low paying yet demeaning work. A sacrifice which can only be expected from a affectionate and devoted mother. The author successfully accomplishes to portray a selfless mother’s personality by addressing the quandaries facing women especially beleaguered single mothers that limit not only their education but their employment opportunities simultaneously. Thus, Magona has beautifully portrayed someone else’s lived experiences in the form of a fiction novel providing a representation for the people who have undergone oppression of the similar intensity. Her writing concentrates primarily on her female characters and explores the significant themes of familial and spiritual grounding to the concept of mothering. Her story narrates the strong interconnection of single motherhood and poverty. Magona’s poignant revelations provide a powerful insight to the readers about the struggles faced by single mothers. The absence of the father had a devastating impact on the family unit as the wife was not only deprived of financial support but also companionship. Additionally, the children were denied their male role models. The role of a mother in an African agrarian society is filled with innumerable responsibilities, who accepted her fate of enslavement without any complaint. In the latter course of the story, her children seen to have filled with the sense of despondency and the wailing of her mother to have witnessed her children’s self immolation. The dramatic and tragic rendition of the story evokes strong and sympathetic feelings towards the character. Since her poverty plunged the subservient mother into fleeing to sustain her family which meant everything to her. All in all, this character represents every distraught mother who was compelled to escape her rural poverty in desperate search of work in the town. In the hopes of feeding five of her famished children by her meager urban salary. She did all this to be able to feed her children, clothe and educate them. Here, Magona actually shares her own heartbreaking truth of being a mother trapped neck deep in the pit of poverty using a fictionalized character. Magona strongly believed that motherhood was a duty which came with huge responsibilities which even forced the mother to take up the role of a father. Therefore, motherhood can be extremely challenging and labor pain is not the only form of distress that a mother has to go through. Raising a child is perhaps as difficult as carrying one; it is a back-breaking labor that Magona’s story clearly depicts. However, for all her pain and agony that she goes through, a mother is also known for the undying love she has for her children and the extent of the sacrifices she is willing to make for them and the book uses short stories to demonstrate this aspect of motherhood, especially in a politically turbulent country such as South Africa. In conclusion, the stories do not only shed light on the concept of motherhood from a cultural perspective, Being a mother is definitely a laborious endeavor and especially when women are not supported by the man, who is responsible for their condition makes it a whole lot more upsetting for the woman. However, it may be understandable as to why some mothers may choose to abandon their children, but most of the times their reasons are not completely acceptable and it leads to dire consequences for everyone involved. Work Cited Magona, S. Living, loving and lying awake. Interlink Book. 1994: 6 Read More