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Mother Archetype In Toni Morrison's Consolata

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In this context, the portrayal of Morrison’s Consolata conforms to the Jungian characteristics of the “Mother Archetype.” As mentioned earlier, the women are given diabolic attributes as they incarnate the disobedient wife of Adam, Lilith. Bowden provides other specific features in relation to the “Mother Archetype” since it is not a universal concerned with all mothers, but only for those minorities of women who are able to carry this glorified name. According to him, “The mother archetype takes the form of a personal mother, grandmother….or governess. It can be fulfilled in the figurative mothers such as Mary Mother of God….or the mother who becomes a maiden…the positive aspect of the archetype is mother by love and warmth” (171).
Indeed,…show more content…
As a “Reverend Mother” (265), Consoltata appears like a goddess in the women’s lives. Her power of raising the dead bodies and seeing “best in the dark” (241) has sparks Lone’s thoughts towards Consolata unusual forces.As a wise woman, Consolata has finally finds the therapy that would heal the psychological and physical traumas these women faced. As a matter of fact, Yue-Ting in describing Consolata, he says that she is “an example influenced by magic realism rooting from Latin American Literature” (978).Consequently, she creates what Morrison calls the “Loud Dreaming,” in which, the female characters’ past is substituted by brighter future as they have been purified and cleansed by the falling rain. In the “Loud Dreaming,” Consolata asks the women to recline on the floor, surroundedby the lighted candles while repeating sacred words that say, “My child body, hurt and soil, leaps into the arms of a woman who teach me my body is nothing my spirit is everything” (Morrison 263). Once again, the Convent appears to offer the spiritual experience that is denied them in external
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