The concept of motherhood is the unifying factor between these two characters' situations. Continuing the mother/child symbolism mentioned before, Hester's motherhood was what brought about her ultimate shame with the child being conceived in sin. It was the most unconventional beginning to her situation, as seen in her retorts to the pleas of her daughter: "I shall think of it, and come occasionally to the scaffold [a cruel thing to leave her daughter looking for her at her execution], and when it is over, the child is yours - for it's a male, and mine shall be thine. You do little good by coming, and the last was harm, old woman. Why, it may be only this world's mode of mother's tenderness, and must not be withstood. But when the town gates are thrown open, I will not accompany thee to my scaffold" (The Scarlet …show more content…
This notion is hard to fathom for a mother, but it was Hester's mode of being unselfish. Aubri is the protagonist of the play "In the Blood". She is a poor black woman with four children from different fathers. Anyone savvy to the history of race oppression and the ramifications of poverty upon minority groups has to wonder if Aubri was meant to be a caricature of the black single mother. It is all too familiar attributing these situations to an ethnic group, and it is a given that black families are disproportionately affected by poverty. Aubri tries diligently to improve her situation, with a great aspiration to go back to school and also work on a writing project. In her mind, the purpose of this is to leave something for her children when she dies. But in the end, her situation deteriorates into her having her own children removed from her in a similar manner to Hester. The first thing that jumps out at the reader is the title of the essay. "In The Blood" is a colloquial term often used to refer to a stain or a blemish which cannot be washed