Motherhood

I will start out by saying that the fact that Mary Jemison was stripped from her family's care is the reason why she claims that parenthood is as satisfying as she deems it to be. Stemison states that "the time at which parents take the most satisfaction and comfort with their families is when their children are young, incapable of providing for their own wants" (123). Mary Jemison's innocence and adolescence was forced to end in such an extreme manner that her feelings were forced to become repressed. She kept everything inside, all of the pain and torture deep down inside; first of all she could not communicate with her captors, and at the same time she could not even express to herself the extent to which her life was being ruined. In chapter ten Mary admits to the reader, " [I am] happy-more so than commonly falls to the lot of parents, especially to women" (123). After having found some form of stability in her life in the aquisition of land, Mary feels that she is content with the way in which her life is. She is in no means in the perfect situation that is considered attainable in those times, but she does not feel 'lost'. Her life has changed in the sense that she lives for other people now. Her sons and daughters are what mean the most to her, and she will love them no matter what they do or become. At the same time it is interesting how lightly she takes the murder of one of her sons by the other; the narrative voice in this entire captivity account is questionable.