FACULDADE FRASSINETTI DO RECIFE ESPECIALIZACAO EM LINGUA E LITERATURA INGLESA LITERATURA COMPARADA PROFESSOR: ALEXANDRE FURTADO ALUNO: MARIA IZABEL BARBOSA BABY When we start reading the short story “Baby” by Makeda Silvera, the first impression we have is that the story is about a mother and her baby girl, who is completely dependent on her: ”Asha woke up to find Baby close. Her nipple was sore from Baby’s hunger of the night before”. The relation between Asha and Baby is explained during the story but the sensation of dependence from Baby to Asha remains.
In the first part of the text, the first nine paragraphs are about the “day after”, so there has a pause and then we get to know what happened at the night before, then it comes clear that there’s a relationship between Asha and Baby but not a mother and daughter relationship. Both are adults female around 35 years old, from Caribbean, black and lesbians, difficulty factors in every society, they moved to Canada to have some liberty but they found the same “policy” of Caribbean in sense of homosexuality, besides, they moved to a neighborhood where people from Caribbean lives, so they would suffer the same prejudice that they had escape.
From Asha’s point of view, this “policy” doesn’t affect her life but gave her the opportunity to be a good professional and show, as a teacher, a good example from black people to black people. She misses her country but she wouldn’t give up of being a teacher to have more freedom outside the house with Baby by going out with her as a couple.
On the other hand, Baby sees Canada as a “closet”, they cannot live as a couple and this makes her feel more and more insecure about their relationship, she pushes Asha to make her see that things concerning them are not that well, that they only stays at home watching TV, and never having fun in some bar or club because of Asha’s professional reputation and as a teacher and black woman, for Baby would be easier for Asha if she decided to show who she really is and she would be respected because of her education, since Baby “(…) got no education or family behind y name. ” While they argue and make up, a new character shows up in the text, he is a burglar. A sexist, prejudiced and religious man who invaded the house intending to rape, kill and steal the women. He decides to do this after listen the conversation of the “Hotspot” costumers, a bar where Caribbean people used to go, then he makes up his mind that something needs to be done about that “nastiness”. “He wore no mask”, he wasn’t afraid of being recognized, the girls would be killed anyway but if they wouldn’t who would judge him?
According to him “God never intended them to be this way. God wanted man and woman together. ” and using this argument he gets in the house and watch the women together, waiting the “right time” to act. He is a character without name, maybe a black man, maybe a Caribbean, only thing we know for sure, is that he used to be a security guard, that decided to quit and go to Vancouver, that he was a man who should protect not to attack “his own people. The man don’t finish his purposes, he just watch the women and masturbate himself and because of this he cannot do what he would, he gets frustrated and go away, maybe he returns, maybe he goes to Vancouver but his decision is not sure as the security and future of the two women inside her own house. Asha never wanted to go out with Baby as a couple because of what people could think and even so the violence could came to their house, by their own people.
