Discuss the differences between Grandma West and Grandma East. How do they support their families? How do their own superstitions impact their daughters?
Grandma West has never accepted the end of her relationship with Monife’s father and she is fixated on ending the curse. Grandma West has gone from relationship to relationship trying to end the curse. I think that Grandma East and Grandma West are actually opposite sides of the same coin. Through their behaviors they have engrained in their daughters the inevitability of the curse. To be fair, it is quite likely that their mothers did the same.
I thought of them as “opposites” in some ways. One more mystic and another always searching out men in her sphere. They both, though, were convinced the curse was real and reminded their daughters of the inevitable.
Appropriately named opposite directions as that is how they dealt with their family’s legacy curse. One dealt with it by practicing magic spells and the other tried to defy it by physically wooing men till she found the right one. Both perpetuated the generational trauma on their daughters they just used opposite approaches. Like the east wind versus the west wind they came at the problem from different directions but ended up with similar results.
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Polar opposites. One wanting to fix everything with potions and hexes, the other thinking she was going to break the curse if she found the “right” man to do so. Ok, I just changed my mind, they can’t be polar opposites if they both believe the curse exists…maybe just passing on the “fix” in a way that makes sense to their inner belief system. Neither method is based on solid evidence, but both women are convinced they have found the answer. I suppose these are the methods learned and passed down from generation to generation. Nothing will change until someone breaks the pattern.
I agree with all of the above, that the two women are opposites in how they deal with the curse, but they both definitely believe in it and have helped pass it down to the daughters in the family.
I loved the contrast between the two women! Initially it was a contrast in superstitious versus practical, but they both seemed to influence each other during the course of the novel, much like a married couple would. Family members influence each other. It can’t be helped. Physical distance seems to be the best way to reduce the influence.
Grandma West was an educated woman who tried to out run the curse by turning to traditional medicine to get back the husband who left her. He never returned. Her daughter, Monife, also considered herself a modern woman, but when she felt Golden Boy slipping away, she fell back on her mother’s traditional medicine. Doing so sent Golden Boy to break it off with her.
Grandma East tried to out run the curse through multiple marriages and serial dating. In an effort to avoid the curse, she cut men out of her life. In doing so she denied both her daughter and her daughter’s father a relationship with each other, hurting those she loved and denying herself happiness.