IRB Blog Post 8

Sophie's mother works as a care taker/maid for an invalid old woman. She stays with her and cares for her and sleeps on the floor next to her every night. Sophie cares for herself and sleeps on a cot in a separate room. One night Sophie feels extremely homesick and wants nothing but to be near someone so she asks for her mother to come and spend the night with her. When they begin to talk Martine, Sophie's mother looks into her eyes and asks if she was the mother Sophie had hoped she'd be. Sophie had always hoped that her mother would be like Erzulie, the vaudou loa and Virgin Mother, "the healer of all women and the desire of all men." However Sophie tells her that couldn't have asked for better.

When I read of Erzulie, the Virgin Mother I became curious as to who that was and what the story behind that person/thing was that had relevance to the way Sophie had perceived her mother to be.
This is what I learnt:

http://www.erzulies.com/site/articles/view/29

IRB Blog Post 7

As Sophie begins to adjust to her new life in America her relationship with her mother still seems to stay a bit awkward. Though they are not yet that close, her mother seems to be speaking for her and denying her ambitions and making decisions for her. For example when Sophie says that she wants to be a secretary when she grows up her mother stops her and tells her that she will be come a doctor and will not even consider dating until the age of eighteen.
Sophie is now going to school and is very nervous about the adjustment as she has heard many negative rumors of her school and the people that attend it. Her mother also introduces Marc to Sophie, her long term boyfriend. Marc is well dressed, put together, rich and a lawyer. He works in a well kept peaceful neighborhood, unlike the one where Sophia and her mother live with graffiti all over the walls and chaos running all about throughout the streets.