Moss and Hostility

Barbara Robinette Moss’ memoir, Change Me Into Zeus’s Daughter was so utterly complex, and yet there is appreciation in the way that she gives the account of her youth in Alabama. The technique of flipping from the past to the present is evident, and those moments where the reader sees the perspective of her siblings, all grown up, works well in contrast with the way she describes them as kids. The perspective is imaginative and delightful at times, but then shifts to more darker stories as the novel progresses. What was extremely puzzling was the fact why Moss’ mother put up with her abusive, violent husband for so long. She was an interesting, sweet, maternal character, and the opposite of what the author seems to see in her father. There seemed to be a recurring theme of rules, and how they are kept, and how they are broken. An example of this is when her father forces her to write with her right hand, even though she was a lefty. It was a painful and tortuous act that he inflicted; a strict rule that her mother helped her to break by saying that it was just a “game” and she could write with her (dominant) left hand when she was not with her dad. I this way, the mother broke the “rules” or boundaries laid out by the father, and she tended to do this in different ways later in the book.

In the text, the mother seems to put up with the father’s drunkenness and disruptive, if not dangerous, behavior. One night, her husband randomly shoots at the dresser? But something else might have been going between them behind closed doors. Moss’ mother keeps saying to her children, “‘It’s alright, […] Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. It was just an accident. Everything’s alright.’” (97) and after that she makes up a story about a mouse being the drawer, and her husband was trying to shoot at it instead of telling her kids the truth. This shows how imaginative and creative she it, creating stories to lessen the fright of the situation at hand. She seems to “sweep everything under the rug” in the beginning childhood memories of Barbara living in Alabama. Her mother is an intelligent woman, and there’s a scene when the author lists all the books and furniture and items that her mother owned when they moved into the new house they were renting in Birmingham, Alabama. She owned (and read) over 50 books, which seemed to a large amount, including all the religious texts, for how poor they were in context.

There was this scene earlier where the mother quietly shows her love for Barbara when she discusses her love for art, and how her mother went to art school when she was younger, (before kids). Moss stated, “I followed the directions in the book and gave my drawings to Mother to grade. She placed waxed paper over my images and made corrections with a red crayon” (63). This shows that the author’s mother seemed to really care enough about her kids to give them pointers on their own artistic abilities and buying all those “paint-by-numbers” art activities. Barbara cared enough about her to almost worship her old drawings from the art school, as well as her red curly hair, which she was disappointed that she inherited her father’s looks and not her mother’s. The mother emphasized rules for her kids, but was loving and gentile, whereas the father was just plain angry, mean, and physical/verbally abusive, especially when he drank.

The dynamic between Barbara and her older sister Alice was intriguing as well. It is the one time where the mother seems to value Alice more than she does Barbara, and threatens her abrasively. She says to her daughter, “‘If you ever tell on Alice again, I’ll beat you within an inch of your life.’ Then she walked away. I rocked, rocked harder, wept, and hated them even more, including Mother. A red-hot, hungry hatred” (104). The author labels her mom as “Mother” with a capitol “M” not by her first named or mama or mommy. This was noticeable because it shows that they are close compared to her and her father, and yet very distant with one another compared to her older sister, Alice. This was the first time where the author is scared of both her parents, and had violent shaking episodes almost every night because of it. The line was striking and heavy-handed. A threat that shook me to the core. Barbara then, realized that should never side with her father on anything, and the mother almost convinced her children to be against him and his behavior as some sort of retribution of his abuse towards her. By making him the “bad guy,” she can be the picker-upper, the cleaning lady that sweeps up all that shattered glass and porcelain plate bits when he throws them in a terrifying fit on the ground. She never stands up for herself, and yet, this line she eerily whispered in Barbara’s ears late at night showed that even early on, her mother has some sort of hidden backbone, and will one day divorce the father and move on with her life. The environment Moss grew up in was mostly hostile and driven with the immediacy of poverty and trying to stay alive. But through those heartbreaking moments, it’s really the close, tight-knot bond she has with her seven siblings that keeps her sane.