Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.
The danger of motherhood. you relive your early self, through the eyes of your mother.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Motherhood connects women to their past experiences, bringing them face-to-face with their own childhood through the lens of their own mother.
In this quote, Joyce Carol Oates highlights the profound impact motherhood has on a woman's identity and self-perception. When mothers raise their children, they often revisit their own formative years, reflecting on their past through the perspectives and experiences they share with their offspring. This duality can present both a beautiful connection and a challenging emotional cycle, as mothers navigate their former selves while shaping the lives of the next generation.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the challenges of parenting, one might refer to this quote to emphasize the complexities of understanding one's own mother while becoming a mother.
More from Joyce Carol Oates
All quotes βI never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.
I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.
Similar quotes
In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other.
Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.
Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason. Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may.
In elite, primarily white institutions, there are many blacks who have white wives. So much so that sometimes there is almost the assumption that I would be married to a white woman.
Of all the diseases I have known, loneliness is the worst.