Naomi Royde-Smith (1875–1964)

This short 1931 novel spends most of its time inside the head of its central character, who is in fact never identified by name, but figures variously in the text as "Dick's wife", "Mummy" and, most frequently, "she". The tendency of some people to define themselves entirely through others does, I confess, make me somewhat uncomfortable, and so it is probably not surprising that I was also made uncomfortable by the acute but narrow vision of "the mother", and her obsessively detailed anaysis show more of the most minute shifts in her relationship with her two young sons. The question seems to be, how far was my discomfort intended by Naomi Royde-Smith? Is this a story embracing motherhood as life's supreme emotional experience - or an account of a limited soul?

Whatever else it is, The Mother is certainly a beautiful piece of writing. Royde-Smith's control of her language in the numerous lengthy passages in which she conveys the ebbing and flowing of the narrator's emotions is remarkable. At the same time, the psychology of the narrator, whether we find her admirable or disturbing, is never less than convincing. The overt action of this novel, such as it is, occupies a brief period during a sunny afternoon, as the narrator watches her boys, aged six and four, playing together and waits for the return home from work of her husband. Quietly pondering her life, the narrator takes us on a wandering journey through her marriage, the changes wrought by the arrival of the children, the feelings of inadequacy provoked by the precocious older boy, Trevor, and the soothing sense of self-worth engendered by the open affection of the younger, Beng. In the boys' behaviour and reactions she sees echoes of herself at a similar age, and by examining her childhood memories in the light cast by motherhood, she begins to grow into a greater understanding of herself.

But all throughout the narrator's self-analysis we see actions being translated into terms of emotion - until it becomes difficult to judge whether we have simply caught her at a particularly vulnerable moment, or whether this tendency to view life through an emotional prism is habitual. Repeated moments of self-dramatisation would suggest the latter. More than once the narrator fantasises about sacrificing herself by giving up the first place in her childrens' affections to their father or their aunt; yet Beng's momentary display of a preference for his father provokes an outbreak of jealous self-pity startling in its intensity - She had never felt pain like this before... Sight and hearing reeled within her... - and a self-examination that reaches new heights, and depths. When the wave passes, there is a sense that this extremity of feeling has been a cleansing experience for the narrator, a trial by fire that has left her with a clearer and calmer vision of her world and her place in it; yet ultimately, it is the exaggerated suffering and exaltation of her inward journey that lingers and disturbs.

She was a taut string of anguish across which an omnipotent devil drew out a shriek of despair. Her own voice calling "Beng! Beng!" broke the appalling sound. The string in which she quivered snapped. The circle fell apart and left her steady at a centre that was no longer the pivot of its whirling. She passed in a breath from the extremity of suffering movement to the breathless silence of dead calm. For a moment the silence and stillness were enough. She lay beneath them inert, aware only that the torment was over---sunk like a stone that, dropped into a well, has reached the dark oblivion of its source... show less