the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

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mother After a long bout of famine, when her family
flnally gets food, she feels more happy for her children
than for herself: "... at the sight of their faces, still
plnched but content, a great weight lifted from me" (NS.45)
Even after the death of two of her sons and the desertion of
the others, Rukmani accepts everything as her 'karma'. Tlll
the end, she is a picture of serenity, calmness, acceptance
and endurance -- in a word, the 'femlnine mother' Although
her sons belie her expectatlons, she accepts her fate with
stolc calmness Wlth her husband dead, whom also she
mothered to some extent, she now needs a new power-symbol
ar.d therefore adopts Puli, a boy strlcken wlth leprosy,
hoplng that he would sustain her through the remalnlng years
of her llfe
2.4.2. In Meridian, Mrs. Hill renounces her career and
wlth lt her Independence after her marriage The feminist
streak In her is suppressed by the feminine expectatlons of
a mother. An independent teacher before marrlage, she
understands that she has to compromise with her freedom
after marrlage She rs unable to cope wlth the pressures of
motherhood, but the revolt brewlng ln her turns Into a stolc
acceptance of patriarchal nonns.
2.4.2.1, In fro-~merlcan women's flction, many oppressed
black women find outlets for thear suppression by expressing