Red Mocassins

6 Pages 1383 Words

The Power of a Mother’s Love
In the story “Red Mocassins” by Susan Power, she tries to get her readers to feel a certain way about specific characters in her story. The story pushes me to be annoyed with Joyce, and genuinely like Anna. Power portrays Joyce to be lazy, inconsiderate, selfish and, most importantly, a bad mother. The complete opposite of this is her cousin, Anna, who is loving, generous and nurturing. Several places in the text demonstrate the qualities of each of these two women. Because of this evidence in the text, it is obvious that this author wants me not to like Joyce, and feel compassion towards Anna.
Power makes Joyce look like a bad mother right from the beginning of the story.
Joyce is portrayed not to be “mother material” because Anna, her cousin, is the one working on Bernardine’s first Sioux costume. Power says in the text that “Ordinarily a mother would do this, but Dina’s was the next thing to useless. Joyce Blue Kettle had never gotten close enough to a needle to stick herself, let alone sew a costume” (409). A reader already looks at Joyce in a negative way because she should have been the one fulfilling this important tradition for her only daughter.
Joyce is obviously jealous of her cousin Anna. Anna recalls stories of their childhood and how obnoxious Joyce was towards her. Joyce’s husband, Clifford, loved Anna, not Joyce, but Joyce soon changed that. Clifford bought Anna many little gifts when they were children. One time Clifford brought Anna a glass eye, and “It was too much for Joyce. She intercepted the gift, snatched it from the palm of my hand as I studied the green iris. She took Clifford over the same way, ordering him around, demanding his attention, and because I did not love Clifford, I let her keep him”(410). Joyce wanted everything Anna had, and again is portrayed to be someone I would dislike. However, in that particular instance someone coul...