My Mother Demonology Analysis

Childhood; it's one’s foundation and when that foundation crumbles it tends to leave a lasting effect. When a child has nothing but shattered pieces to base their life on its hard to pick up those pieces when no one is around to help. In Kathy Ackers short stories “Great Expectations” and “My Mother: Demonology” both of the main characters have their childhoods shattered by their mothers, who are normally the ones who are there to pick up the pieces, not smash them into smaller pieces. Acker uses the postmodern element paranoia to parallel how mother-daughter relationships are ever changing and create emotional damage to childhood, which in turn sticks with a child all their life.

Postmodern elements of paranoia are present in “Great Expectations”

The mother-daughter relationships are always being tested and out through the wringer, which leads to rocky relationships. In both “Great Expectations” and “My Mother: Demonology” the main characters try to run away and escape their mothers, they feel trapped and just want to get away. “Three or four times I tried to escape her” (Acker My Mother; Demonology). Not only did she try once or twice to escape, but four times showing that this wasn't just a one-time occasion. All that just to get away from her mother who she felt was holding her captive. Acker also uses a metaphor to get her point across by saying, “She is a monster everything is a monster. I hate it. I want to run away (Acker Great expectations). She looks at her mom as a monster and “monsters are half and half borderline creatures who horrify precisely because they are at once human and not human natural and unnatural” (Pitchford 61). She thinks her mother isn't human, because no real human could put her through the amount of pain and trouble her mom has put her through. Also, she is struggling with the idea that her mom has good qualities and bad qualities, but the bad seem to shine through more which deem her a monster. Since both main characters felt like they couldn't escape their mothers it drove a wedge their relationships. On account of dealing with constant bad memories and moments, it left them with a bad relationship with their mother, which in turn also left a lasting mark on the