Throughout the novel there are two main female role models in Cat’s life. Mama Sweetie was Patrick’s grandmother and one of the most maternal and nurturing people that Cat knew. She said that Mama Sweetie taught her to be “gentler than gentle” (Myracle, page 15). If you were to ask any random person to give you five words that described females, odds are at least one of those words would be synonymous with “gentle.” Mama Sweetie was the quintessential loving southern grandmother and she was the most feminine figure in Cat’s life. Through Mama Sweetie, Cat learned how to deal with anger and how to stand up for herself. I would argue that she is the strongest female role model (or all around role model) in the entirety of Shine. Then there is Tildy, Cat’s maternal aunt and caregiver since …show more content…
She is the poster child of tough love and no-nonsense. She rarely, if ever gave any hugs, and even Cat said that she had her own way of comforting; making Cat’s favorite meal, chicken and dumplings. Aunt Tildy is probably the farthest example of standard femininity out of all of the women that are shown in Lauren Myracle’s novel. She refuses to dye her hair because she thinks that it is too vain, even though she hates the fact that her hair is going grey. Aunt Tildy also does not like to sing along to her music because that would be “letting loose,” which is not something she is willing to do (Myracle page 117). This is one of the major differences between her and Mama Sweetie, along with the way that the two women relate to Cat. After Cat was assaulted by Tommy “Aunt Tildy blamed what happened to me on puberty” (Myracle, page 16). She then avoided talking about it and would not even say the words and said that it was not worth dwelling on. I thought that this was interesting, especially I the context of the conversation we had in class about who held the responsibility of talking to girls about certain