Happy Mother’s Day to the mother of my children my wife Kerry, to my own mom Mary (aka “Nanta”) and my mother-in-law Kathy (aka “Gammie”), and all the moms out there! (I realized that if I put a comma between “mother of my children” and “my wife Kerry”
We’ve done worst mothers, we’ve done a comprehensive list of all the mothers and we’ve even done sonnets for Mother’s Day. So, what should we cover this year?
Who do you think is the most *interesting* mother character? I’ll let you define that how you want. Lady Macbeth, maybe, precisely because there’s no child in the play? Gertrude for her complex and sometimes faulty balancing of relationships between what it means to be a mom and to be a wife? Hermione for her loyalty to her crazy jealous husband?
The Countess from All's Well springs immediately to mind, because of her complicated relationship with her disappointing son Bertram and her surrogate daughter/eventual daughter-in-law Helena. She's one of the few mother figures who isn't portrayed as either stifling or absent, but rather wise and justly concerned for her prodigal son, and extremely supportive of Helena.