October 16, 2016 - 13:06
I flew through Suzan-Lori Parks’s Getting Mother’s Body, but as I read, I found myself returning to the novel’s title and the double entendre it presents readers. At first, given the novel’s plot, it seems to be a clear reference to Billy Beede’s journey to recover her mother’s buried body -- and the treasure that was supposedly six feet under along with it. However, as I began reading and discovered that 16-year-old Billy’s story parallels her mother’s. Like Willa Mae, Billy was very poor, young, and unmarried when she got pregnant. In this way, Billy got her mother’s body – that of a young, ringless, pregnant girl. She constantly tells her unborn child to “stay small,” as it serves as a constant reminder of both her poor decisions and her mother’s, the latter which set Billy up for quite a difficult life devoid of answers. The title also poses a question that follows readers as they make their way through the novel: will Billy end up following in her mother’s footsteps, although she constantly denounces her mothers’ livelihood and sleazy practices, or will she forge her own path? Will she have her baby, or risk dying like her mother did, attempting an abortion? Will she listen to her mother’s songs and “wise up, child, turn yrself around?” Will her mother’s treasure help her make the right decision, or steer her in the wrong direction?
The prospect of hearing Parks speak in a matter of days is incredibly exciting. I would like to ask her how, as someone born in the south in the 1960’s, how her own experiences as a child, and how those of her family and friends, shaped the way the south is represented in this novel. I would also like to see how her own personal views on the issue of abortion in the United States were reflected in the work, and in the actions of Billy and her mother. What could politicians take out of this piece of the plot, on both sides of the aisle? I also want to delve deeper into how Parks developed such a fascinating character as Dill, and how this character could actually connect to Bryn Mawr College. M. Carey Thomas, the first dean of BMC, was openly a lesbian at a time where it was not as widely accepted, like Dill. However, M. Carey Thomas was a major white supremacist, and Dill was proudly black, and antagonized those with lighter skin (rightly so). What would Dill have to say to Thomas? I also would like to discuss with Parks the fact that the two major female characters, Billy Beede and Dill Smiles, both have such aggressive personalities as well as masculine names, although at the time they were living women were supposed to act in the exact opposite manner. Why these specific characters? Why make it so only the women with traditionally male names are overwhelmingly masculine in action, personality, and demeanor? From Park’s opinion, I want to hear from her who she believes should read this novel the most, and why. Finally, did Parks pointedly write the novel without any white characters who play a large enough role to speak in the work? Was it a conscious choice to make all of the characters fit into a specific oppressed minority, or was this merely a coincidence?