ESPECIALIZAÇÃO EM LÍNGUA E LITERATURA INGLESA
PROFESSOR: ALEXANDRE FURTADO
ALUNO: MARIA IZABEL BARBOSA
When we start reading the short story “Baby” by Makeda Silvera, the first impression we have is that the story is about a mother and her baby girl, who is completely dependent on her: ”Asha woke up to find Baby close. Her nipple was sore from Baby’s hunger of the night before”. The relation between Asha and Baby is explained during the story but the sensation of dependence from Baby to Asha remains. In the first part of the text, the first nine paragraphs are about the “day after”, so there has a pause and then we get to know what happened at the night before, then it comes clear that there’s a relationship between Asha and Baby but not a mother and daughter relationship. Both are adults female around 35 years old, from Caribbean, black and lesbians, difficulty factors in every society, they moved to Canada to have some liberty but they found the same “policy” of Caribbean in sense of homosexuality, besides, they moved to a neighborhood where people from Caribbean lives, so they would suffer the same prejudice that they had escape. From Asha’s point of view, this “policy” doesn’t affect her life but gave her the opportunity to be a good professional and show, as a teacher, a good example from black people to black people. She misses her country but she wouldn’t give up of being a teacher to have more freedom outside the house with Baby by going out with her as a couple. On the other hand, Baby sees Canada as a “closet”, they cannot live as a couple and this makes her feel more and more insecure about their relationship, she pushes Asha to make her see that things concerning them are not that well, that they only stays at home watching TV, and never having fun in some bar or club because of Asha’s professional reputation and as a teacher and black woman, for Baby...