Toni Morrison’s sweetness follows the early life of Lula Ann through her mother’s eyes and focuses on themes of race and motherhood. The characters are defined distinctly by the narrating mother according to the darkness of their skin. She refers to herself, her mother, and others in her family as “passing for” white in social circles. Meanwhile, her daughter is distinctly dark, which in the mother’s eyes is a burden.
The mother and daughter are both characterized by prejudice and hardships of the time. Sweetness, what the mother wants her daughter to call her instead of ‘mama’, is conforming and observant of the injustices around her (Morrison 2015). She treats her daughter in a controlling manner such as braiding her hair, crossing streets to avoid white boys who are bullies and telling her to not talk back in school. The mother believes that her treatment of the daughter is right due to the circumstances but often hides her guilt by stating that the cruelties are not her fault. Lula Ann is very different from her mother, she begins to rebel at a young age and as she grows up, the only contact she offers is sending her mother financial support.
The spectrum of skin color in the story reflects privilege and the behavior of the characters towards each other. Louis, the husband of Sweetness and Lula Ann’s father is also repulsed by Lula Ann’s appearance and abandons her (Morrison 2015). This is also a prevalent theme, as cutting contacts runs through the family starting with Sweetness’s grandmother. As the narration comes to an end, it is revealed that Lula Ann is about to have a child and experience motherhood. Here Morrison suggests that being a parent can affect the way one interacts with injustices of the world. Sweetness repeats this by saying that she did her best under the circumstances.
The narrative Morrison presents moves as a recollection. It is a story told from Sweetness’s perspective about something occurring over a long period of time. Although the focus is on one family and one perspective, the narrative allows the reader to observe the life of Lula Ann and many other Black Americans who were unfairly subjected to such torment and cruelty.
Reference
Morrison, T. (2015). Sweetness. The New Yorker. Web.