The Daughter by Ashe Bandele Essay

'The Daughter' is a gripping and suspenseful book by Asha Bandele that describes a woven story from past to present. Bandele captures the complex mother-daughter interaction and their conflicts as they try to accept their differences. She also shows the difference between a mother and daughter and their difficulties while they live together when she vividly portrays the conflict and between Miriam, and her daughter Aya. She gives the readers an opportunity to feel the suffering Miriam experienced when she had to choose between her parents and Bird, her new love. Also, she wonderfully demonstrates the difficulties the couple faces as they begin their life together, and the financial struggle they goes experience. When Bird and Miriam started livin together, they struggled to start a new life because they had no source of income. Bandele shows the determination and hardships single parents face when they raise their children alone after the death of their husbands. She demonstrates the embarrassment, and willpower Miriam feels after the death of Bird. Miriam encountered a lot of challenges because she had to provide food, shelter, and offer security to their daughter alone. The novel also discourses many other issues affecting the American society such as young love, police brutality, racism, war, poverty, parenting, and social isolation. Asha Bandele in 'The Novel' depicts the complexity of the relationship between mother and daughter, and the challenges facing the black American such as police brutality.

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Bandele demonstrates the complexities relationship between a mother and daughter using series of parallel between the main character Bandele and her daughter, Aya. Miriam as a young woman is full of life, and in love with the love of her life. Miriam sees that life is very promising but her mother tries to open her eyes on the hardships of marriage. However, she feels so blissful after she meets Bird and she no longer obeys her mother's rules. Her mother tries all she can to advise her how hard being a woman, parenting and taking care of the family. Her relationship with her mother was a complex one and they hardly got along. As a child, Miriam "was loved, yes, but hers was a childhood defined by the church, and by her mother's restrictions and protection" (Bandele 62). Miriam's mother wants the best for her this is the reason why Miriam's mother is against her relationship with Bird. This show how much Miriam's mother loved and cared for her but they could not relate well because they wanted two different things in life.

In the entire text of 'The Daughter,' the author employs sequences of parallels to exemplify the complications of Miriam's association with Aya. When Miriam was born her mother was very happy after she had lost five pregnancies, and people thought that she could not bear a child. Miriam's mother says that she never knew how a living baby looks like until she gave birth to her miracle Miriam. She says "Because my baby, my Miriam, my miracle started crying" (Bandele, 61). She grows up following her mother's rules which is the main reason for the conflict between them. At the age of 15 years, she falls in love but her mother insists that she should wait until she completes her education. She refuses to believe education would help her future. Miriam is full of life and believes in herself, therefore, she does not heed to the advice from her mother. Miriam is demanding for her parent's acceptance, yet she finds it hard to openly show acceptance to her own daughter actions "I know it ain't easy. But finally you got to let the hope of easy just go and think about what you need to do. How you can just be right. For yourself and most of all for that child." Miriam's mother accepts that it is not easy to bring up a child alone but insist that as a mother one has to work hard and do everything she can for her child. Similarly at the age of 19 Aya Rivers has been trying to appeal her mother by following her rules, and doing all that she wants. When the novel beings the author says that "All the trouble she had caused and now, finally, at nineteen, Aya was doing what her mother had asked of her. She was in college and was making excellent grades" (Bandele, 3). There was no good relationship between Miriam and her daughter despite how Aya tried to do all that her mother wanted. From one generation to another the readers notice the complex relationships between daughters and their mothers. When the novel beings, Aya Rivers is an average teenager, who now believe it is time to be an independent woman. Aya has been obedient for 19 years dealing with her mother's strict rules and curfews. She is now in college and works hard to maintain her good grades as her mother demands of her. She also falls in love while studying "Aya loved him. She loved the beautiful young man she'd met in a political science class who was so smart, always challenging the teacher, always bringing in the Black perspective" (p. 461). Bandele, Asha. Daughter: A Novel (p. 31). Scribner. Kindle Edition." The conflict between Aya and her mother is caused by Miriam's overprotection. Although she does it to protect her daughter from harm she ruins the daughter and mother relationship. Like many other teens, Aya believes that her mother should not protect her since she is now nineteen and can take care of herself. Aya thought that she would be free of her mother's rules and overprotection over her life but this does not happen. She ends up in a place where she burns internally and shouts to her mother "Mama, she cries from deep down inside herself. Mama, she cries and her terror is palpable. Mama, she cries but no sound or tear" (Bandele 40). Aya does not relate well with her mothers, Miriam, because she is rigid and excessively overprotective all in the name of love. Miriam wants to protect Aya from experiencing the life she faced as a teenager when he decided to go against her parent and move in with Bird. As a pulsating but mischievous teenager, she tries to maintain a good relationship with her mother by being obedient. However, she is having a hard time, particularly "when she [comes] across a rule that [doesn't] fit into her life" (page 263). She is tired of obeying the rules her mother makes because she feels that most of them are stupid.

Miriam's conflict with the Bird

Miriam is in a conflict with the Bird after he died leaving her to raise their child alone. When Aya was in the hospital, Miriam is worried about her parenting and wonders if she has the best mother to her daughter. She met her dad at the age of sixteen when he was working as a janitor in her school. Bird had come from Vietnam and but since he is black, no one respect him for his headwork as he complains to Miriam that "I'm a veteran! You would think I'd get some respect since I risked my life for this country. You know what I mean?"(p. 75). She confronts the bird because he made her realize herself and they started a relationship. It was due to their relationship that Miriam stopped following her mother's rules and she later moved in with him against her parents will. She feels that Bird separated her from her mother's love and is upset with his memory. Miriam's life was a caution of who not to talk to, what not to do, how not to think. When they started to live together, and when she was pregnant "Even before she went to the clinic for the test, Miriam knew she was pregnant. (p. 141) Aya he died. When Aya was short by police Miriam was desperate and confused and she started calling her late husband to save their daughters. He was not there to protect their daughter and Miriam struggles to reconcile with his death but all in vain. Bandele says that "She called, although of course, he could not hear her. He could not come" (Bandele 56).

Police brutality and the problems facing blacks

Aya was shot on one winter night in Brooklyn by a white police officer. She was only nineteen years old, vibrant and positive about future. Miriam rushed to the hospital when he heard the bad news, but she could not believe it "My baby can't have been shot. It's impossible"(p 55). This means that Miriam could not believe that her daughter has been killed just like her husband. It was a case of mistaken identity but the white police were in a hurry to kill her simply because she is black. She died because of his color and not because she had committed a heinous crime. When Miriam arrived at the hospital she narrated that it could not be Aya who was short because she lives a clean life "After the phone call, Miriam had arrived at the hospital armed with an insurance card and her rules" (p. 55) Miriam waits in Ayas bed when her mind flashes back her youth life and her conflicts with her mother as she tried to achieve independence. She also wonders the kind of a parent she has been to her daughter passing her rigid rules on what not to do, who not to talk to among others. The senseless rules of womanhood she learned from her mother failed to protect her daughter against death. On the day Aya was shot, she had been joggling and had worn black hooded shirt and pants. On the same day, a male who had killed a shop owner had worn the same clothes and her body resembled that of the suspect. The police believed that Aya was the suspect and hence they ordered her to stop. Aya did not comply with their demands probably because she could not hear them. She was reaching her sweatshirt while turning around and unfortunately, the police thought that she was reaching a gun. The white police fired several times to Aya almost killing her immediately.

Black Americans undergo a lot of suffering in the hands of police. The police are brutal towards them and use their power and position to make their lives hard. Bird complains that he was sent to Vietnam to fight people who did not colonize or oppress their ancestors. People whom he does not have any interest in. he did not like his job because he was fighting men that were half his size. The black people are still suffering because they are made to work and live like slaves. Bandele says "Bird nodded and then told Miriam of a brother he met in Vietnam who talked about slavery still impacted Black people" (Bandele 95). Bird is referring to the oppression Black people face and they have to keep on moving because if they try to resist they get killed. Bird had to bear with Vietnam hallucinations and the police persecution because he was a black in America. Bandele demonstrates the long past of racial profiling, discriminations of the black soldiers, and how black Americans live with injustice for the fear of death. Later in the novel, the readers realize that Bird was also killed by a white police officer. These incidences make Miriam insane and as the novel ends she is in prison for "reckless endangerment and the criminal possession of a firearm" (Bandele 239). She does not want to die like the rest of her family member and this is the reason why she carries a gun for self-protection.

Silence

Miriam never heard a conversation with her mother about the consequences of having a chaste affair. She gets involved with Bird and she becomes pregnant forcing her to leave her family and move in with him. Miriam does not have time to communicate with her daughter. When Aya want to tell her something, Miriam had a way of shutting her done by giving her an excuse that she would be late for work. Bandele state that no matter the situation or circumstance, "Miriam responds to Aya with a mild voice, and then "Okay, okay, but quickly. I have to leave a little earlier than usual today. There's a big meeting at work." There was always something whenever Aya wanted to talk to her mother" (Bandele 4). This silence separated the relationship between Miriam and Aya.

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