Trauma and Empowerment in Tina McElroy Ansa’s Ugly Ways

Introduction

Ugly Ways (1993) by Tina McElroy Ansa is a novel that follows the three Lovejoy sisters, Betty, Emily, and Annie Ruth, as they reunite in their hometown of Mulberry, Georgia for their mother’s funeral. Set contemporaneously, most of the novel is narrated in third person omniscient, which allows readers insight into the daughters’ complicated relationships with their late mother, Esther “Mudear” Lovejoy. While otherwise a straightforward work of psychological realism, Ansa’s novel also gives a voice to the dead, in the form of several chapters from the first-person perspective of Esther. She observes her family from her coffin and refuses to let them have the final word about her. This perspective proves thematically significant, as much of the narrative centers on Esther’s journey toward freedom and self-definition, or the “change,” as her family refers to it. Esther’s “change” occurred early in her daughters’ childhoods: she withdrew from family life and the Mulberry community and committed her life to fulfilling her desires and enjoying her leisure. In this essay, I argue that Esther’s “change” is both an act of empowerment and an expression of psychic pain. In Ugly Ways, there emerges an intriguing connection between Black feminist theory and trauma theory that is worth closer critical examination than the novel has thus far received. I have divided this essay into four parts: In Part I, I define Black feminist theory and explain my critical approach to the essay. In Parts II and III, I examine Esther’s “change” through the lenses of Black feminist theory and trauma theory, respectively, highlighting the ways in which Ugly Ways articulates a conception of Black womanhood at the intersection of empowerment and trauma. Part IV shows that Black feminist theory and trauma theory are not just compatible, but consonant, as both enable us to appreciate Black women as complex human subjects and move beyond conventional representations of Black women in history and mainstream popular culture.

Part I: Key Concepts in Black Feminist Thought

Because Black feminism is the primary theoretical paradigm underpinning this essay, it is incumbent upon me to introduce some key concepts of contemporary Black feminist thought, a critical social theory that “provides an alternative, self-defined lens through which Black women can be seen and their experiences understood in the world” (Patterson et al., 2016, p. 43). Black women’s intervention in this area serves as a corrective for feminism and anti-racism, which have subordinated Black women as subjects in favour of White women and Black men, respectively. Collins (2000), Crenshaw (1991), and hooks (1989) establish in their writing three core tenets of Black feminist thought: intersectionality, oppositional knowledge, and justice. Intersectionality “denotes the various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of Black women’s experiences” (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1244), while also subsuming other bases of identity such as class, sexuality, and religion. As a concept, intersectionality helps Black women deconstruct overlapping systems of oppression, principally racism and sexism (Collins, 2000, p. 8; Taylor, 2014, p. 32).

Next, oppositional knowledge is a “way of knowing that is based on the lives and experiences of all [African American women]—embodying collective reality past and present, family and community” (hooks, 1989, p. 31). Oppositional knowledge thus emerges from Black women’s shared experiences of economic, political, and social subordination—along with their participation in larger African American culture (Collins, 2000, p. 13; Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1250). African American women use oppositional knowledge to create strategies to survive, escape, and resist conditions of injustice (Collins, 2000, p. 201; Patterson et al., 2016, p. 43). The privileging of lived experience as opposed to abstract critical tenets makes Black feminist thought more accessible than conventional academic theory, and thus more amenable to practical application.

Finally, Black feminism is committed to the pursuit of justice—“both for Black women as a collectivity and for. . .other similarly oppressed groups” (Collins, 2000, p. 9). A Black feminist consciousness encourages activism at all levels—from the large-scale public activism aimed at resisting intersected systems of oppression, to the development of institutions and practices that empower African American women, to the “micropolitical acts of defiance” that comprise a form of everyday activism (Taylor, 2014, p. 33).

My application of Black feminist theory in this essay privileges the connection between Black women’s individual experiences and sociopolitical “structures of domination” (hooks, 1989, p. 32). The well-known feminist slogan, “the personal is political,” exemplifies my approach. In her essay, “The Personal is Political”, Hanisch (1969) asserts that “all personal problems are political problems.” According to Hanisch, when women meet in groups and “discuss their own oppression,” they are participating in a political act—specifically the act of feminist consciousness-raising. From there, women may make connections about the nature of their problems and begin to search for solutions (Hanisch, 1969, n.p.). Feminist consciousness-raising is one way by which African American women achieve self-definition (Patterson et al., 2016, p. 43). Self-definition is empowering for African American women as individuals, and as a collective. Collins (2000, p. 114) writes,

By insisting on self-definition, Black women question not only what has been said about African American women but the credibility and the intentions of those possessing the power to define. When Black women define ourselves, we clearly reject the assumption that those in positions granting them the authority to interpret our reality are entitled to do so. Regardless of the actual content of Black women’s self-definitions, the act of insisting on Black female self-definition validates Black women’s power as human subjects. (emphasis mine)

In Black Feminist Thought, Collins (2000, p. 93) highlights the fact that African American women writers—of both fiction and non-fiction—have provided a “comprehensive view of Black women’s struggles to form positive self-definitions” in the face of multiple oppressions.

It is precisely this kind of personal growth toward positive self-definition that animates Ansa’s Esther Lovejoy. I share here a textual example that illustrates Esther’s growth and development process. While Esther’s “change” is difficult to unpack, there is no doubt she comes to define herself as “a woman in [her] own shoes” (Ansa, 1993, p. 39). At times, Esther alludes to the particular event that precipitated her self-imposed physical and emotional isolation, referring to “that cold, no-heat-and-no-lights-in-that-freezing-assed-house day” (Ansa, 1993, p. 39), but it is her husband Ernest’s painful admission to Annie Ruth that reveals the details of the event. In the Lovejoys’ twelfth year of marriage, Ernest receives his first promotion in his work at the kaolin mines, which comes with a bonus of $250. In a moment of pride and boastfulness, he agrees to lend the money to a member of Esther’s family, against her gentle, but clear advice not to trust her family up North (Ansa, 1993, p. 172). When the winter comes and Esther’s relative has still not repaid him, Ernest realizes his mistake. The family’s gas and electricity are cut off and Emily and Annie Ruth almost die from whooping cough and meningitis. Esther saves her family when she pays the gas and electric bill with some money she has managed to save (Ansa, 1993, p. 78). In the following section, I argue that Esther’s “change” constitutes empowerment through emancipation: Esther emerges liberated from the oppressive force of sexism within her middle-class nuclear home when she refuses to accept any longer the submissive and subservient role assigned to her under patriarchy. However, her “change” is not without difficulty and pain—particularly for her children—a fact that reminds the reader of the cultural and societal strictures imposed on African American women: personal emancipation comes at a cost.

Part II: Empowerment and Black Feminist Theory

Ugly Ways is set in the early 1990s, but the narrative returns periodically to describe the events surrounding Esther’s “change,” which occurs roughly in the mid-1960s. This was a period in American history when Black women were expected to remain in the background behind and in support of Black men, their struggles against the dual oppressions of sexism and racism largely left unacknowledged (hooks, 2015, p. 6). According to hooks (2015, pp. 4–5), during and after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s, Black male activists defined freedom as “full participation as citizens in American culture” (pp. 5)—and thus failed to question and challenge American culture’s patriarchal value system. As a result, the primary goal of “equal rights” soon became the establishment of a Black patriarchy (hooks, 2015, p. 5). Esther Lovejoy, growing up in the 1950s, would have been a part of “a new generation of women who had been taught to submit, to accept sexual inferiority, [and] to be silent” (hooks, 2015, p. 2). This social and historical context makes Esther’s transformation into “a woman in [her] own shoes” deeply transgressive (Ansa, 1993, p. 39). Esther achieves spiritual freedom by prioritizing her own needs and desires. From her “change” until her death, she puts herself first unapologetically, unabashedly, and unconditionally—a radical choice for any Black woman of her era—after years of being defined by her husband and children.

From Betty, Esther, and Ernest, we learn about the state of the Lovejoys’ marriage before the “change.” Ernest abuses Esther physically, verbally, and emotionally throughout the first twelve years of their marriage, while Esther remains timid and subservient, and acquiesces to his every demand. Ernest’s abuse of Esther rests on what bell hooks refers to as the “[s]ystematic devaluation of black womanhood” in American culture (2015, p. 70). For instance, he calls her names like “whore” and “slut” in order to undermine her confidence and self-esteem. As Esther recalls,

Now that I think about it, it’s what Ernest used to have the nerve to call me when he used to come home ‘bout drunk and put us out. He’d call me those names, not because he thought I was actually screwing around on him but because for him that was the worst thing he could think of to say to me. He thought it was the worst thing a man could say to a woman. Call her a whore or a slut. (Ansa, 1993, p. 76)

This particular line of abuse can be traced back to the era of American slavery, when Whites constructed and propagated the myth of the Jezebel—the wanton, lascivious, and sexually permissive Black woman—as a pretext to rape and exploit Black female slaves with impunity. According to hooks, the devaluation of African American women on the basis of their sexuality remains pervasive after hundreds of years and continues to limit and restrain Black women (2015, p. 53). Ernest imposed sexual shame on Esther “in order to control her and relieve his feelings of inadequacy” (Green, 2002, p. 48). In the wake of his wife’s death, he reflects on the early years of his marriage: He was outraged by Esther’s lack of inhibitions surrounding sex, and recalls, “Even the way she walked around their first rented room with no clothes on as if it were the most natural thing for a newly married woman to do. Like she had been doing it all her life. It made him uncomfortable” (Ansa, 1993, p. 98). Esther’s sexual confidence threatened Ernest’s masculinity, and so he took whatever measures he could to curtail it.

Ernest is a middle-class Black American man, formerly working class, who has “absorbed the standard definitions of masculinity” as they relate to the importance of providing financially for one’s family (hooks, 2015, p. 77). Ernest feels it is his duty to provide for his family and his right to dominate his household. For this reason, he justifies his physical abuse of Esther, remarking,

Sure, he had slapped her a few times after they were married a couple of years. But that was how things was then, he thought. Then, a man controlled his household, his wife, his family. Wasn’t even no big to-do about it. Just a couple of taps really just to shut her up and let her know who was who and what was what. Most mens did that every now and then at that time, he thought. That’s how it was then, it was a way to rule your house. You said something and your woman did it. If she didn’t, you showed her that she better. People understood that then. (Ansa, 1993, p. 97)

Ernest’s compulsion to rule his house with an iron fist may have been an unconscious response to the matriarchy myth, first “identified” and promoted by David Moynihan in his notoriously influential government report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965). Moynihan, a sociologist, served as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Assistant Secretary of Labor. Observing the high number of Black working mothers and the rise in Black single-mother families, Moynihan argued that the Black community had been forced into a matriarchal structure, with women in a position of dominance (1965, pp. 30–34). hooks explains that

The matriarchy myth was used to discredit black women and men. Black women were told that they had overstepped the bonds of femininity because they worked outside the home to provide economic support for their families and that by doing so they had de-masculinized black men. Black men were told that they were weak, effeminate, and castrated because ‘their’ women were laboring at menial jobs. (2015, p. 75)

The matriarchy thesis was a myth. African American women and men have not achieved social equality, and African American women’s participation in the workforce traditionally derived from economic necessity. In fact, “Few black women, even in homes where no men are present, see themselves as adopting a ‘male’ role’” (hooks, 2015, p. 73). Despite its gross inaccuracies, the matriarchy thesis was highly influential in Black communities. According to hooks, “men used the matriarchy myth as a psychological weapon to justify their demands that black women assume a more passive, subservient role in the home. . .[they] regarded black [women] as a threat to their personal power” (2015, p. 79). Ernest views Esther’s quiet confidence as a direct threat to his patriarchal authority. He can only be a “real man” insofar as he is able to suppress her. When Esther temporarily assumes Ernest’s role in the household and turns on the lights and heat, she uproots him from his comfortable seat of masculine authority. Of that day when Esther paid the gas and electric bill, Ernest remembers that he wanted to die, and he felt “as if someone had pulled down his pants in public, and he looked small and withered” (Ansa, 1993, p. 173). In the power struggle that has been their marriage, Esther finally gains the upper hand and she maintains it for the rest of their lives together. As Esther comes to dominate the household, Ernest never challenges her. Ernest realizes that he can no longer make Esther do anything; her mind is made up. And any time he is tempted to try, he imagines Esther’s look of “wicked disdain” and remembers his “stupid and prideful mistake” of lending her family the money (Ansa, 1993, p. 175).

Esther ceases to be a victim of Ernest’s abuse when she severs all emotional ties with him and claims her own physical and spiritual space (Green, 2002, p. 49). The family house in Mulberry becomes Esther’s physical space. Before the “change,” Ernest would order Esther and their children out of the house whenever she displeased him. Whether the offense was burning dinner, forgetting to iron his favourite shirt, or voicing a dissenting opinion, “. . .Mudear would have to pack up the girls and herself and get out in the street and find somewhere to spend the night” (Ansa, 1993, p. 129). However, after Esther pays the gas bill and puts Ernest in his place, she realizes that the house is just as much hers as his. She recalls,

At first when I made up my mind it was gonna be different, I had thought about just walking away. Leaving that house and that kitchen and everything and walking away free and clear of it all. But then I thought, why should I leave something that was mine? A nice comfortable house where I had three girls, two of them—and soon all of them—big enough to help with everything, the cooking and cleaning and sewing, and a man that I knew inside out who had a steady enough job. . .Leave all that? Just to go off and tackle the world by myself. Why?

So, I decided to stay in my body. But to leave in spirit and let my spirit free. So that’s what I did. And never did regret it, either. (Ansa, 1993, pp. 105–106)

In an impressive display of agency, Esther transforms a house where she had never felt safe into a refuge of leisure and repose. Her spiritual space is her garden, where she finds her passion, joy, and fulfillment (Ansa, 1993, pp. 35–36, p. 56). Mudear reflects ardently, “I did so love to dig in the dirt. I was just a born gardener. I could taste the soil and tell whether it was acid or alkaline. When I woke up with dirt under my fingernails, it was some of the happiest moments for me” (Ansa, 1993, p. 36). Esther is not only a dedicated gardener; she is also a very talented one. Her family—even her entire community—cannot help but marvel “in awe at the show of garden glory” (Ansa, 1993, p. 216). The garden embodies, then, Esther’s creative spirit. Tara Green (2002, pp. 50–51) makes the connection between Esther’s gardening and Alice Walker’s article, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” Walker describes how the tradition of gardening has passed through generations of African American women since slavery. During slavery, artists’ creative gifts were tragically stifled, but the garden remained a creative outlet for the African American woman: “whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned it into a garden” (Walker, 1997, p. 15). Walker’s own mother was an avid gardener despite working from sunup to nightfall every day. Walker writes, “It is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant, almost to the point of being invisible—except as Creator: hand and eye. She is involved in work her soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her personal conception of Beauty” (1997, p. 15). This evocative passage speaks to the role that gardening plays in Esther’s empowerment. Like Walker’s mother, Esther uses gardening to feed her creative soul (Green, 2002, pp. 50–51). Only in her garden, are Esther’s spirit and body connected.

While Esther exerts herself in gardening, her life after the “change” is defined by leisure. Once she turns the tables on Ernest and embraces the home as her domain, she insists on having the best of both worlds: she ceases domestic work at home and also refuses to work outside the home. Both alternatives, she feels, would impinge on her dignity. Esther has no desire to challenge the gender roles that normalize a husband providing for his family and a wife remaining in the domestic sphere. After all, her self-imposed relegation to the home only maximizes her leisure. As Betty observes, Esther was a woman

who spent most of her days lying in her throne of a bed or in a reclining chair or lounging on a chaise longue dressed in pretty nightclothes or a pastel housecoat. Doing nothing with her time but looking at television, directing the running of her household, making sure her girls did all the work to her specifications. Then, if she felt like it, some gardening at night. (Ansa, 1993, p. 13)

A typical day for Esther also includes a long, relaxing bath, a manicure and pedicure, and hair care by her eldest daughter, Betty (Ansa, 1993, pp. 34–35). Esther privileges her own desires as a matter of principle. From her perspective, the first twelve years of marriage to Ernest earned her a lifetime of indulgences, and there is no reason to work and toil and sweat only to benefit a man. In a memorable passage, Esther proclaims to her daughters,

‘A man, no matter how much he love you will send you out to face the world alone, will sit by and watch your heart break, will let you work yourself into the grave taking care of him and then stand over the open hole and cry and cry and yell. . .

But yet and still before you cold, he be walking around looking for another fool woman to take care of him while your ass be six feet under.

A man don’t give a damn about you.’ (Ansa, 1993, p. 99)

It is useful to examine Esther’s attitudes toward work from a Black feminist perspective: Collins writes that “Work as alienated labor can be economically exploitative, physically demanding, and intellectually deadening—the type of work long associated with Black women’s status as mule” (2000, p. 48). Seen in this light, Esther’s refusal to have her labor power exploited in any arena is deeply transgressive. Her strong aversion to toil allows her to enjoy impeccable physical health throughout her life; Ernest remarks that his wife “never really had a sick day in her life. Had that perfect eyesight and all her teeth, God knows she got her rest and nutrition, didn’t know the meaning of stress and tension. The way she pampered herself youda thought we was rich as cream. She shoulda lived forever” (Ansa, 1993, p. 95). Despite being a middle-class African American woman, Esther lives a life of rare privilege.

While Esther’s empowerment was initially attributable to financial agency, after the “change,” Esther enjoys full financial freedom without the responsibility of actually earning money. She is well aware that Ernest relies on his role as provider to preserve what remains of his shattered ego, and this, she often uses against him. When Ernest is hesitant to buy a new television for their bedroom, Esther declares that she has enough savings to buy one herself. Unsure whether Esther is telling the truth (she is not), and fearing further emasculation, Ernest purchases the television “right quick” (Ansa, 1993, p. 77). Moreover, when Ernest complains about the costs of maintaining their new home, Esther disingenuously offers to apply for work in domestic service. Predictably, Ernest’s complaints cease immediately (Ansa, 1993, p. 113). While Esther does not engage in conspicuous consumption, she does spend money to enhance her leisure. Ernest reflects that cable, catalogues, and overnight delivery service were made for Esther—and yet she had no perception of the price of anything (Ansa, 1993, p. 102, p. 170). Thus, with one vital payment of the household electric bill, Esther secures for herself a life free of financial worries.

After the “change,” Esther is emboldened enough to define herself through the use of voice. Before the “change,” she had always struggled to find her voice and express herself. On her childhood, she reflects, “Even when I was a girl, people just seemed to get so upset when I spoke up or expressed my feelings or anything. . . But then I realized that most of that was ‘cause folks just didn’t want to hear nothing from no colored woman about what she thought” (Ansa, 1993, p. 148). Having been browbeaten in a world that devalues African American women and girls—especially their feelings, opinions, and intellectual contributions—Esther entered her marriage silent and submissive. She “acquiesced publicly to her [husband] in all matters—money, the children, choices for dinner, or how to line the kitchen trash in the most efficient way” (Ansa, 1993, p. 126). In private with her daughters, however, “Esther dared to express her views, how they differed from her husband’s and how he was a stupid and underhanded bastard for holding those views and imposing them on her” (Ansa, 1993, p. 126). That fateful day when Ernest decided to lend money to Esther’s family in the North, he ignored her objections as if she had never spoken, effectively silencing her. And so, when Esther re-fashions herself into the woman she wants to be, she takes every opportunity to assert herself and ensure that she is never silenced again. In a complete role reversal, Esther begins to use her voice to control and admonish Ernest:

. . .When her mother started spending longer and longer periods lounging in bed in her nightclothes. . .Betty began to sense a shift in the tension that used to ring the house like the moons of a planet and seemed somehow to keep the family together. Sometimes, she would walk past her parents’ room and feel the floor almost tilt with the sudden contradiction her mother would throw out at the man.

‘Naw, man, don’t fold the paper back that way. That’s stupid!’ (Ansa, 1993, p. 127)

Of course, Esther’s opinions are not limited to Ernest and his newspaper folding habits. She shares her opinion on a variety of topics—from misogyny in rap music, to the proper arrangement of centrepieces, to her daughters’ career choices. Everything she says, no matter how insignificant, appears to resonate throughout her household (Ansa, 1993, p. 58). For his part, Ernest shrinks slowly into silence. While at first, he tries to counter Esther’s voice and “fight for a space in the conversation” (Ansa, 1993, p. 47), eventually he realizes that this is not a fight he will ever win again.

It is of special importance that Esther is able to speak directly to the audience from her coffin. Green writes that “Mudear becomes like an omniscient, omnipresent goddess to her family. Her larger than life presence is compounded by Ansa’s narrative technique in which Mudear is able to hear what her family says about her. Thus, Mudear, even in death, is indispensable and unforgettable” (2002, p. 51). I agree with Green and add that Esther’s insistence on telling her own story is the ultimate act of self-definition. In revealing details about her past, her feelings, and her motivations, Esther allows us to understand and appreciate her complexity in ways her family members cannot. One crucial insight thus available to the reader but not to her family is that Esther suffers from psychological trauma.

Part III: Psychic Pain and Trauma Theory

In this section, I argue that Esther’s “change” is a manifestation of trauma. In his article, “Clinical and Historical Perspectives on the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma,” Peter Loewenberg provides a concise definition of psychic trauma:

Psychologically, trauma means a violent shock, a wound to the person’s self-concept and stability, a sudden loss of control over external and internal reality, with consequences that affect the whole organism. . . The external stimulus is too powerful to be mediated by the normal adaptive coping mechanisms; the person is overwhelmed and helpless. The self disappears and psychic survival is threatened. The affects and the ability to symbolize feeling states are damaged. Responses range from apathy, paralysis, dissociation, splitting, and withdrawal, to panic, terror, annihilation anxiety, fragmentation, and disorganized behaviour. (2012, pp. 55–56)

Using this definition as a starting point, psychic trauma is a compelling explanation for Esther’s “change.” I take an intersectional approach to exploring Esther’s trauma. First, my approach is informed by Laura Brown. Brown argues that many conventional images and understandings of trauma have been overly narrow and constructed within the experiences and realities of society’s dominant groups (1995, p. 102). The experiences of women and other non-dominant groups “have been excluded and turned inwards upon their victims, who are then blamed for what has happened to them” (Brown, 1995, p. 102). In her feminist analysis of psychic trauma, Brown takes into account social context, along with an individual’s personal history within that social context. She highlights subtle manifestations of trauma so as to “include as traumatic stressors all of the everyday repetitive, interpersonal events that are so often the sources of psychic pain for women” (Brown, 1995, p. 108). Brown brings us into the world of quotidian trauma, moving the private experiences of girls and women to the center.

The cold winter is a traumatic event for Esther: her marriage breaks down, she is plunged suddenly into financial insecurity, and two of her children nearly die. It is latency that allows Esther to summon her emotional and material resources and pay the bill when the company cuts the family’s gas and electricity. Latency occurs because “the [traumatic] event is not assimilated or experienced fully at the time, but only belatedly, in its repeated possession of the one who experiences it” (Caruth, 1995, p. 4); it is the period during which the effects of the traumatic event are not apparent (Caruth, 1995, p. 7). Soon after saving her family, the weight of Esther’s psychic pain becomes overwhelming. She begins to rely increasingly on Betty to run routine errands, such as paying the bill at the local grocery store, and Betty recalls that “. . .over the months after Mudear’s change, the simple [domestic] duties she chose to perform became less and less frequent with all the girls taking up the slack Mudear left” (Ansa, 1993, p. 208). With Esther unable to perform her mothering role, Betty has no choice but to become an “othermother” to her sisters while still a child herself. In her Afrocentric feminist analysis of motherhood, Patricia Hill Collins describes the centrality othermothers in the institution of Black motherhood. Historically, female family members in the African American community have taken on child-care responsibilities for biological mothers, or “bloodmothers,” who were not able to carry the load alone (Collins, 2005, pp. 154–155). For her part, Esther remembers spending entire days in bed due to fatigue after the events of the cold winter, and even losing the taste for food. She notes, “It’s hard for me to believe that at one time I had stopped getting any enjoyment out of food, all that delicious food I prepared in that dark cramped kitchen. . . Uh, everything started tasting like wet cardboard in my mouth, even my cakes. . . But I found out afterwards that it wasn’t my cooking, it was my life” (Ansa, 1993, p. 105). These short-term symptoms of trauma—fatigue and loss of appetite—are somewhat subtle, but Esther’s long-term symptoms of emotional avoidance and emotional numbing loom large in her family and even in her community.

Esther entered her marriage young, innocent, and optimistic. She loved and admired her husband and believed he was truly in love with her, that their union would be a partnership based on mutuality and respect. As Esther remarks ruefully,

It sound so foolish now, but I truly thought that Ernest and me, our getting married was like a wedding of two forces. We would be joining forces, taking the best of both of us, me a city girl and him a country boy, my strong points joined up with his strong points, his best traits and mine. We was gonna take life by storm. I really thought that at one time. That’s how I thought it was with my Mudear and father.

And it did hurt for a while when I realized he didn’t give no more of a damn about me than the man in the moon. The things he did to me didn’t hurt me half as much as realizing that he did ‘em ‘cause he didn’t give a damn. (Ansa, 1993, p. 107)

When Ernest ignores Esther’s advice and lends the money to her family, Esther realizes he truly doesn’t give a damn about her opinion. While it is true that Ernest chooses to help her family, Esther is well aware that he is motivated by his pride—his desire to show off his success to “all those Negroes up ‘Nawt’”—rather than any sort of altruism (Ansa, 1993, p. 172). I contend that Ernest’s decision, together with the terrible events that follow, precipitates Esther’s psychic trauma. Esther’s trauma is also cumulative; it derives from years of enduring Ernest’s abuse, alcoholism, and infidelity. After the cold winter, she recovers from her deep depression only by renouncing all parts of her former self, especially her passivity and submissiveness, and severing all emotional ties to her husband. Betty alludes to the depth of Esther’s psychic pain when she reflects, “Mudear never went looking through old letters or pictures or mementoes. She had little interest in the past, and especially a past that had so many painful reminders of how things used to be” (Ansa, 1993, p. 125).

Esther is also traumatized by her family’s sudden plummet into financial insecurity. During that cold winter, the Lovejoys are in a grave and desperate situation. After speaking with her father, Annie Ruth relates that “By the time it started dropping down near freezing at night, Poppa was near panic. For the first time in his married life, he had overextended himself. . .by the time the white man with the hard hat and tool belt came to turn off the gas and electric, Poppa had no money, expected none for a month, and had nowhere else to get any” (Ansa, 1993, p. 173). With Ernest unable to earn or borrow enough money to turn on the heat, Ernest and Esther watch helplessly as Emily and Annie Ruth became increasingly sick, their illnesses exacerbated by the cold. Under these grave conditions, Esther using her secret collection of money to pay the gas and electric bill was a powerful act. I perceive Esther’s reclusion after the “change” as a manifestation of emotional avoidance. Emotional avoidance is a symptom of trauma where a person acts to prevent an uncomfortable emotion from reoccurring (Forbes et al., 2020, n.p.). During the cold winter, Esther experiences a sudden and overwhelming loss of control. In withdrawing completely from public life and remaining at home, Esther transforms her household into a safe space, a space over which she can exert complete control. And the watchful eye she keeps on her children—even in death—is an indication of her reluctance to relinquish this sense of control. Moreover, Esther’s insistence on leisure and material comforts is another manifestation of emotional avoidance. Esther does everything in her power to avoid feeling the fear she associates with poverty and scarcity. She also does everything in her power to avoid feeling the fear she associates with the near- death of her children: this, I maintain, is one reason for her emotional withdrawal from Betty, Emily, and Annie Ruth. Gardening not only fulfills Esther’s creative spirit; it is also a therapeutic outlet, which allows her to fulfill her nurturing instincts in a way that is guaranteed to be rewarding. After all, Esther is confident in her skills as a gardener. She knows that if she tends to her beloved flowers to the best of her ability, they will never fail to flourish. Yet, when she tended to her family to the best of her ability—as the dutiful wife and devoted mother—two of her children nearly perished. Thus, Esther’s emotional distance from her daughters is in large part a protective measure. She avoids emotional attachment to protect herself from re-experiencing the fear of nearly losing them.

In the end, we learn that Esther died of pneumonia, even though she had always been “strong as a mule” and had “never really had a sick day in her life” (Ansa, 1993, p. 95). I understand Esther’s pneumonia to be symbolic—it suggests that the cold of that fateful winter stayed with her somehow. While ostensibly, her life after the “change” was filled with nothing but ease and relaxation, there was a part of her that continued to suffer for the rest of her life.

Of course, Esther did not suffer alone; her daughters, Betty, Emily, and Annie Ruth, remain emotionally scarred from the events of their childhood. In fact, the intense and prolonged nature of the sisters’ emotional distress indicates intergenerational trauma. Jameta Nicole Barlow defines intergenerational trauma as “a collection of deep and distressing experiences within and across generations and embedded in biological responses” (2018, p. 903). Intergenerational trauma is usually associated with collective trauma; however, the residual effects of individual traumas can also be transmitted within families (Carranza, 2010, pp. 575–576). The power of trauma lies in its unspeakability: the immediacy of the traumatic event means that it “bypasses perception and consciousness [and falls] directly into the psyche,” (Hartman, 1995, p. 537), creating “a gap that carries the force of the event and does so precisely at the expense of simple knowledge and memory” (Caruth, 1995, p. 7). Traumatic knowledge cannot be made entirely conscious (Caruth 10); as a result, the events that precipitate Esther’s trauma are shrouded in secrecy. Esther never speaks about the cold winter and its effect on her, and, understanding “the family message of the unmentionable” (Loewenberg, 2012, p. 59), her daughters never ask about it. Esther remains possessed by the cold winter precisely because it remains unspoken. According to Loewenberg, victims of trauma “inevitably inflict, and, thereby, perpetuate, trauma” (2012, p. 64). Esther withdraws emotionally from her family to reverse her traumatic helplessness. As a result, she inflicts trauma on her daughters through emotional neglect.

Esther abandons the responsibility for emotionally nurturing her daughters when they are still very young and vulnerable: Betty is eleven, Emily, seven, and Annie Ruth, four years old. Esther appears to be quite proud that “[she] didn’t coddle ‘em and cuddle ‘em to death the way some mothers do” (Ansa, 1993, p. 37). Esther’s constant refrain to her daughters throughout their lives is that “‘a man don’t give a damn about you’” (Ansa, 1993, p. 42). Using a gender racialized trauma analysis, I interpret Esther’s lack of nurturing and use of this motto as her method of instilling strength and resilience in her daughters to face “a country built on the structural negation of Black women’s humanity and personhood” (Cooper, 2018, p. 91). Esther does not want her daughters to have illusions, only to eventually see those illusions shattered, the way hers were. However, whatever Esther’s intentions, her daughters often lament how damaging it was to be deprived of motherly affection and comfort throughout their lives. For instance, Emily reveals that growing up, Esther rarely acknowledged her presence except to criticize her.This pattern continued into Emily’s adulthood, with Esther appearing to take little notice of her daughter’s weekly visits. Moreover, Betty has harboured a deep yearning for her mother’s praise and appreciation for her entire life. Betty runs two very successful Black hair salons in Mulberry and used a portion of her earnings to help support Esther in her old age. Naturally, Esther never so much as comments on her eldest daughter’s business acumen, nor thanks her for supplementing her expensive shopping habits. Most of all, the sisters resent how Esther’s actions had left them “so vulnerable, so defenceless, open and raw to the town’s gossip” (Ansa, 1993, p. 11). The Mulberry community “had not stopped discussing and dissecting the Lovejoy family since the day Mudear changed” and “some said the whole family had ‘walking insanity’ like other folks had ‘walking pneumonia’” (Ansa, 1993, pp. 10–11).

The phrase, “walking insanity,” while disparaging and insensitive, does convey the mental health problems that often arise from intergenerational trauma. Both Emily and Annie Ruth suffer from serious mental health issues. Betty describes Emily as “flirting” with insanity (Ansa, 1993, p. 12), while Emily confesses to feeling insecure and untethered, as though she has no stable identity (Ansa, 1993, pp. 223–225). She sees a psychiatrist regularly, but continues to grapple with suicidal urges, and admits that she would have committed suicide years ago if not for the love and support of her sisters. I believe Emily’s feelings of insecurity and isolation are rooted in maternal neglect; her poor self-image is a reflection of her mother’s perceived indifference to her. For her part, Annie Ruth has recently suffered a nervous breakdown and spent time in a mental health facility to recover. Since becoming pregnant, she has been prone to hallucinations and is reluctant to tell her sisters of her troubles. Esther refers to Annie Ruth’s breakdown as a “heart attack” because she cannot bear to utter the words, “nervous breakdown” (Ansa, 1993, p. 13). From Betty’s perspective, Esther “much preferred to think of her child falling victim to a heart attack, the disease of the hardworking, rather than letting herself become the plaything of the mind’s whim” (Ansa, 1993, p. 14). Esther could never acknowledge her own psychic pain, and so it follows that she cannot acknowledge the pain she has inflicted upon her daughters. To Esther, mental frailty is tantamount to weakness and triflingness.

When Annie Ruth joins her sisters in adolescence, the three make a vow to never have children “just to abandon them the way Mudear had done with them” (Ansa, 1993, 142). Unknowingly, the sisters are acknowledging “the deep resonance of intergenerational trauma” and attempting to end the cycle (Fromm, 2012, p. xx). However, when the sisters confront Annie Ruth’s pregnancy—a pregnancy with which she is determined to go forward—they realize that they need to confront and deconstruct their trauma in order to heal and transform, and truly break the cycle (Barlow, 2018, p. 904). At the novel’s end, Betty, Emily, and Annie Ruth gather at the Mulberry funeral home to prepare for Esther’s burial. At this moment, looking upon their mother lying peacefully in her coffin, the sisters begin to take turns testifying to their trauma. Annie Ruth is the angriest of the three, and she demands, “‘Was being free, like you always said, Mudear, was that the most important thing? Being free. Shit, what did that mean? Free to hurt us, your own children, to abandon us? To cut yourself off from the world and put the burden of your survival and ours, too, on us?’” (Ansa, 1993, p. 268). Betty admonishes Esther for her selfishness and her tyranny, and Emily tearfully utters, “‘I just wanted a mama’” (Ansa, 1993, p. 269). Once they have finished telling their stories, Betty declares, “‘. . .we came down here to tell you that we know we crazy. . . But now we gonna work on happy and peaceful and appreciative and joyful,’” after which Annie Ruth continues, “‘So, we gonna put you in the ground tomorrow, Mudear. And we’re gonna try to bury a lot of pain and hurt and being mad with you’” (Ansa, 1993, p. 270).

The sisters demonstrate the power of bearing witness. Now that they have uncovered and acknowledged the roots of their trauma, they can begin healing the emotional wounds from their childhoods. However, the Lovejoy sisters’ path to recovery may be a complicated one: their desire to bury their pain with their mother signals repression, and the return of the repressed is an element of trauma’s intergenerational dimension. Nevertheless, with the Lovejoy sisters determined to begin their healing journey, one cannot help but wonder how Esther would have lived, and who she would have been, had she been able to confront and deconstruct her own trauma.

Part IV: Beyond Strength: Trauma and Empowerment

There is considerable evidence that Esther has suffered from psychic trauma since the events surrounding the cold winter. And yet, it is this trauma that sets her free to live life on her own terms. There appears, then, to be an interesting connection between the empowerment and trauma interpretations; far from being competing, they are actually complementary. Trauma enables Esther to live a life of her choosing—a life of ease, agency, and spiritual freedom. This freedom is typically denied African American female characters and African American women, who are conventionally depicted as strong in all circumstances.

During slavery, White men propagated the notion that Black women were “masculine sub-human creatures” because their capacity to “perform tasks that were culturally defined as ‘male’ work. . . and endure hardship, pain, and privation” threatened the patriarchal myth of women’s inherent physiological inferiority (hooks, 2015, p. 71). As a result, African American women have never enjoyed the luxury of being placed on a pedestal or being incorporated into American society’s concept of true womanhood; strength—rather than piety, purity, submission, or domesticity—became the only virtue available to unprotected and subjugated Black women (Harris, 1995, p. 110). In her article, “This Disease Called Strength: Some Observations on the Compensating Construction of Black Female Character,” Trudier Harris explains how Black women have fortified the African American community throughout history. She writes,

Historical African American communities could be viewed as having been in various states of ill health, having numerous diseases inflicted upon them by the ugly manifestations of racism. Black women were the spiritual as well as the physical healers, putting hearth, home, and family back together after the tragedy of lynching, nursing daughters brutalized by rape, soothing children who were attacked when they tried to integrate Southern schools. . .We have applauded this strength—and certainly not without justification. (1995, p. 109)

Early literary portraits of African American women were inspired by this documented history of Black female strength, as well as prevailing iconographic images of Black women in popular culture (Harris, 2001, p. 5). African American writers embraced images of strong Black women because these portrayals were preferable to negative and dehumanizing stereotypes—such as the promiscuous Jezebel, the angry Sapphire, and the servile Mammy (Harris-Perry, 2011, pp. 183–184). Thus, the Strong Black Woman icon emerged, replicated by African American writers for the last 150 years, both deliberately and inadvertently (Harris, 2001, p. 19).

In African American literature, the Strong Black Woman, or superwoman, embodies strength of a moral, physical, or otherworldly nature (Harris, 2001, p. 19). Harris (1995, pp. 110–115, pp. 121-123) outlines her most important characteristics: The Strong Black Woman is dedicated to her Christian faith; she is long-suffering and self-denying and feels morally compelled to “bear everything for everybody” (Harris, 1995, p. 113). Defined primarily by her motherhood, the Strong Black Woman may be stereotypically maternal—putting the needs of her children ahead of her own—or physically and emotionally dominating of her offspring. Furthermore, the Strong Black Woman is inclined toward taciturnity; she keeps her own counsel, and, given the “lack of sustained explanation” of her feelings and motivations, the reader has little insight into her inner life (Harris, 1995, p. 111). And finally, the Strong Black Woman suppresses traditionally feminine traits in favour of independence and unassailability. Trudier Harris argues that strength and self-denying independence appear to be virtues of the superwoman until “we consider the price the character has paid spiritually and emotionally” (1995, p. 111). The price of strength is often the character’s contentment, self-fulfillment, and personal relationships (Harris, 1995, p. 122). Harris writes,

These suprahuman female characters have been denied the ‘luxuries’ of failure, nervous breakdowns, leisured existences, or anything else that would suggest that they are complex, multidimensional characters. They must swallow their pain, gird their loins against trouble (the masculine image coincides with the denial of traditional femininity to them), and persist in spite of adversity (they ‘keep on keeping on’). . . With strength as their primary trait, they exist in isolated, unchallenged realms of authority where their morality and physical prowess are all that they have to comfort themselves. (2001, pp. 12–13)

Harris lists Ansa’s Esther Lovejoy as an example of a suprahuman African American character because she possesses “otherworldly, mythical” characteristics that allow her to “defy spatial and bodily limitations, commune with the dead, or die and continue to be sentient” (1995, p. 121). This, however, is far too limited a reading of Esther’s character. What Harris misses is that Esther Lovejoy’s suprahuman qualities, such that they are, are used entirely to provide her with a subjectivity that so many African American female characters lack. In fact, in Esther Lovejoy, Ansa creates a character that contravenes almost every convention of the superwoman outlined by Harris.

First, Esther prioritizes her own needs and practices daily self-care; basking unabashedly in her middle-class leisure, she pampers herself daily, spends as much money as she pleases, and has no need or intention to work outside or inside the home. Furthermore, Esther’s values are rooted firmly in self, rather than Christian doctrine; as Emily reflects, “‘Mudear doesn’t study any religion except the religion of Mudear. That’s what she believes in’” (Ansa, 1993, p. 115). Far from keeping her own counsel, Esther uses her voice to express the totality of her self, and a close analysis of her inner life reveals a deeply complex character whose motivations are varied and sometimes contradictory. And most importantly, when Esther experiences severe emotional trauma, far from swallowing the pain, she changes her entire life in an attempt to cope. Esther’s central contradiction is that weakness and mental fragility—rather than inherent strength—are the sources of her empowerment.

According to Melissa Harris-Perry, many African American women have internalized the Strong Black Woman image as part of their identity; African American women have drawn encouragement and self-assurance from an icon, “whose irrepressible spirit is unbroken by the legacy of oppression, poverty, and rejection” (2011, p. 184). Nonetheless, Black women often suffer when they attempt to live up to cultural myths of their unfailing strength and near indestructability (Harris-Perry, 2011, p. 185; Harris, 2015, n.p.). Harris-Perry writes,

By adopting and reproducing the icon of the strong black woman, African American women help craft an expectation that they should be autonomously responsible and self-denying caregivers in their homes and communities. This means that they are validated, admired, and praised based on how they behave, not on who they are. . . While all individuals are judged by their actions, the strong black woman imperative is unusual in that it requires tremendous personal fortitude from a group with few structural resources. It thus exposes black women to more opportunities for shaming. (2011, p. 185)

Consequently, the Strong Black Woman image threatens the physical, mental, and spiritual health of African American women. Moreover, when society imposes upon Black women expectations of super-strength and self-reliance, “normal humanity is considered failure and that failure can be used to rationalize continuing [social and economic] inequality” (Harris-Perry, 2011, p. 189). In response, many African American women have begun to challenge the Strong Black Woman ideal through their writing, community engagement, and activism (Harris, 2015, n.p.). For instance, Tamara Winfrey Harris is a writer and blogger, specializing in the intersection of current events, politics, and popular culture with race and gender. In her essay collection, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America, Harris encourages African American women to embrace their vulnerability and free themselves from the unrealistic expectations of strength in the face of losses, traumas, failed relationships, and the dual oppressions of racism and sexism. She writes,

The most radical thing African American women can do is to throw off the shackles forged by the strong black woman [paradigm] and regain a full and complex humanity that allows them to be capable, strong, and independent but also to be carried and cared for. Allowing for physical and emotional vulnerability is not weakness; it is humanness. More, it is a revolutionary act in the face of a society eager to mold black women into hard, unbreakable things. (Harris, 2015, n.p.)

Esther’s character development shows that, in some cases, the response to psychic trauma can be liberating for African American women. Only after redefining herself in response to the traumatic events of that fateful winter, was Esther able to be carried and cared for, and live the life of ease and agency she felt she deserved. And while Esther’s daughters did pay the price for her liberation, the novel ends on an optimistic note: Betty, Emily, and Annie Ruth are acknowledging their own trauma and committed to healing from it, on the way to welcoming a new life into the family. Trauma is ultimately an expression of human vulnerability; when African American women are allowed to acknowledge the role trauma plays in their lives, they are freed from the expectation of unfailing durability. It then becomes much easier for African American women to accept support, encouragement, and relief from their families and communities (Harris, 2015, n.p.).

Conclusion

In this essay, I provided a detailed analysis of Esther Lovejoy’s character in Tina McElroy Ansa’s Ugly Ways. I argued that Esther’s “change” is both an act of empowerment and an expression of psychic pain. After presenting these interpretations, I explored a connection between Black feminist theory and trauma theory that emerges from the novel: The response to trauma can be liberating for African American women when it frees them from the confines of the Strong Black Woman archetype. Black feminist theory and trauma theory converge where they help us bring Black women to the center as subjects to uncover the multiple layers of oppression they face. Ultimately, it is very important that Ansa embraces the full humanity of her protagonist and that she explores how quotidian events can be traumatizing in the lives of African American women. Acknowledging that African American women, too, have emotional and mental limits, challenges a society—and a literary tradition—that burdens African American women with unrealistic expectations of invulnerability.