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Submitted by ihle1747 on April 7, 2004
Category: Biographies
Words: 2416 | Pages: 10
Views: 1185
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There are certain times in our lives when we look back at our life stories and reflect why we have become the person we are. It has become apparent that the mother daughter relationship plays an important role in determining who the daughter turns out to be as an adult. In the following stories about the life of Ruth Benedict, as well as two others written by Jamaica Kincaid and Andrea Lee, we will explore the mother daughter relationship, and just how much effect these mother’s had on their daughter’s adult personalities.
Ruth Benedicts experience as a child formed her into the
adult person she became. She was a very imaginative child, and
at a young age was able to make distinctions between two
different worlds, the world of her father "her world", and the world of her mother, the "other world". Ruth Benedict was born in 1887, her father was a doctor, and her mother was a teacher (Mintz 143). Her father passed away when she was twenty-one months old (Mead 97).
This is where Ruth decided that her life story began. She grew up in a single parent, extended family household. Benedict was born with full hearing, but became deaf after a case of the childhood measles (Mead 104). As a child Ruth also suffered from tantrums. These tantrums continued until her mother made her swear on the Bible that she would stop having them. They were replaced by a form of depression. Ruth was very obsessed with the idea of death, and thought of it as a beautiful and peaceful time, she also associated death with her father. Benedict used to lie in the hay and pretend that she was dead in her grave (Mean 101).
She also did not like to tell people what she was thinking about, especially if it was something of great importance that might hurt the other person, or cause the other person to interfere in "her world" (Mead 101). She was a brilliant young child who discovered at an early age that she did not need anyone to confide in,...
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