SHORT STORY: Mama Gone
AUTHOR: Jane Yolen
This short story according
to me can stand as a testimonial that, not all vampire stories are the same.
This story by Jane Yolen has brought out emotions & feelings that are
beyond the life in the grave or the life of the walking dead. The story has
infact spoken about the everlasting relationship between a mother & a child……..as
well as the everlasting tale of the vampire. The narrative tries to ask the
reader of vampire fiction a question, whether a mother who has changed into a
vampire can forget about everything? Including her children? The author also
tries to question the idea of whether being a vampire is more powerful than being
a loving mother. In the end however, it is certainly proven that a mother’s
feelings for her children always triumphs in the end.
Emotions are a main
ingredient in this story, each & every character in this story emotes.
However, the emotions that are prevailing in the story are not that of hate,
fear, horror, terror etc. that one would normally associate with vampire
stories. Infact the emotions expressed in the narrative are that of grief,
pity, sorrow & of course love. In the story on the death of ‘mama’ the
mother of the narrator, the only emotions that are expressed are the emotions
of grief & sorrow typical & normal of anyone who loses their wife or
their mother……..however, these emotions were expressed even though it was known
that the woman who died was from a family lineage of vampires.
After the mother dies during
child birth, the second child Bubba cries out his emotions in his simple babble
‘Mama Gone’ while the husband is in the depths of sorrow on seeing the blood
stained bed.
Although the husband of the
woman is advised to take the necessary precautions in the grave by cutting off
the woman’s hands & feet & filling her mouth with garlic, the husband
flatly refuses. However, superstition turns to reality when the woman leaves
her grave & tries to get into her own home first to prey upon her own
family. She is however prevented from doing so by the narrator who has already
smeared the window panes with garlic & who holds up a Christian cross
infront of her mother. The woman later kills an infant in the crib after which
the husband realizes his mistake.
The narrator of the story
was the eldest of the mother’s children called Mandy Jane. She seems also to be
not only more in control of her emotions than her father but also is the only
person who has complete faith & trust in the love her mother had for her.
It is she who risks the night to remind her vampire mother about all the good
times they have had as a family. Mandy Jane’s recalling of old memories aloud
to the mother makes the mother remember the goodness in her that cleanses away the
stigma of the walking dead.
This story reeks not with
the stench of blood but with the fragrance of love which as Jane Yolen has put
it, has conquered even the impenetrable barrier of the vampire. One cannot help
but get a choke in ones throat when the poor Mandy Jane tries to sing a lullaby
to her vampire mother while she lies face down on her grave of red clay so that
the vampire may not arise & terrorize the surrounding area. The love of
Mandy Jane overpowered her fear of the evil forces present in her undead
mother.
Many references to the Bible
are made in the narrative speaking about what the ‘Good Book’ feels about
death. One important line which the father narrates to Mandy Jane from the
Bible after he realizes that he needs to drive a stake into his undead wife is a
quotation from Ecclesiastes 9:5 : ‘For
the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything’. However,
this is not the complete line of Ecclesiastes 9:5, the full quotation is:
‘For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything,
neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten'
This line was proven by
Mandy Jane to be false as in the end, she made her mother REMEMBER LOVE &
therefore saved her mother from eternal damnation just the way, the love of the
Messiah Jesus Christ saves all the living & the ‘dead’ who believe in him.
In the bargain, Jane Yolen gives the reader a moral to comprehend in her
narrative ‘Mama Gone’.
In the last part of the
short story, the mother who is now free from her slavery to blood tells her
daughter that she is ‘here & gone’ which can be interpreted as that she has
now come to her senses but will soon leave her child & this world &
enter her heavenly realm.
Jane Yolen with this Vampire
story in a simple narrative style has brought out a wonderful moral.
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