Are You My Mother?

Bechdel’s relationship with her mother left just as many questions unanswered as with her father, which admittedly made it easy to just want a straightforward answer or reason. (But obviously, there would be no story that way.) Throughout the story there’s a need for her to understand certain things about her mother in order to understand herself and the story she’s trying to write. She spends a lot of the story absorbed in herself, which she admits, and uses as a platform to begin the process of figuring things out. Earning her mother’s approval is a key part of her whole process, which seems doomed based upon the way she characterizes the relationship with her. She appears to constantly be (either consciously or unconsciously) withholding the kind of approval Bechdel needs, both in her own life and with respect to her work. A good example of this apparently cold refusal to grant approval is their patterns of communication. The scenes of their phone conversations are interesting because they illustrate the extent of the barrier that exists between them. Her mother will not engage with her past a certain point, preferring to just spout off about anything and everything save those things that are too personal. I kept wondering why she keeps calling, if she’s not even comfortable telling her mother how she’s actually doing. But then, the surface-level communication still allows her to have her mother to herself, and to try to make something of their conversations on her own terms by writing down every word. The scenes where Bechdel is sitting in front of her computer with her mother on the line evoke both frustration and loneliness. She sits there in her office, sort of desperate for a direction to go in. She keeps talking to her mother, always hanging up no better off than when she called. Pg. 28 provides a good illustration of this endless pursuit of something more, for her art and for her connection to her mother. It’s snowing, and the look on her face is almost blank from the burden of trying to “figure out what the story is.” It’s clear that she doesn’t just mean a pattern of events or instances in her life, but what the story is between the two of them. The frame opposite of her office, on pg. 29, shows the other end of their phone conversation- her mother, hearing her talk, and not much else. This image stood out because the way that her mother is positioned in the room, surrounded by her own interests and pursuits, and clearly not really listening to her daughter, is really frustrating. Her mother, at least, looks in no hurry to help Bechdel find the story between them. Figuring out the story is not the same thing as helping to edit and give input to it. Her mother does not dismiss her story, and in fact provides extensive notes. But Bechdel admits she “skimmed them quickly, looking for her personal response. Did she remember the time she stopped kissing me goodnight?” Acknowledging the circumstances and not just the craft and “matters of style” would mean a lot more, and are what she keeps waiting for. If her mother had included some recognition of that moment, that in and of itself would have been a step to legitimizing everything she’s trying to do. (Maybe her mother doesn’t know the difference) All of this at certain points in the story makes their relationship seem doomed to the cycle of wanting and needing and never being fulfilled. For instance, the scene where she hangs up on her mother is the first time she really reaches this resolution: “Whatever it was I wanted from my mother was simply not there to be had. It was not her fault” (pg. 228). The frustration she feels at resigning herself to the fact is visible. But then at the same time, there is a shared “creative risk-taking” between them, which it seems like her mother does in fact recognize (234). Their shared creativity is similar to the way she and her father had a common struggle with their sexuality. Her father chose a life that would suppress who he was, just as her mother chose one that would prevent her from doing and being the things she really wanted. In a way, Bechdel was freer on both accounts, and despite her mother withholding things like hugs and “I love you’s,” she ultimately does give her a way to live and express herself like she never could. Or at least, that’s what I made of the last line. “A way out” seems like a very appropriate resolution to reach.