Applications of Language Studies
A semiannual International Research Journal

Voice, Silence, and Dialogue as Linguistic Mechanisms of Healing and Resistance in Morrison’s God Help the Child: A Black Feminist Reading

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Ali Zare Zadeh 1
Hossein Sabouri 2

1 M.A. in English Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran

2 Full Professor of English Language and Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

10.22034/jals.2025.2068531.1102
Abstract
Drawing on Black feminist literary analysis grounded in Patricia Collins’s (2000) “Other Mothering” theory, the overarching argument of this paper is to consider the mother figures as deviations from conventional maternal models, including other mothers, who are deprived or aware of their skin color which put them under severe pressure and even disoriented. The principal objective of this paper is to investigate the concept of Collins’s other mothering, considering the detrimental role of the male-oriented White society on it in Morrison’s God Help the Child (2015). Given Queen Olive’s other mothering for Bride and Booker, this paper aims to respond to fundamental question, why is Collins’s idea of “other mothering” functional in Morrison’s God Help the Child? In order to fill the gap, Andrea O’Reilly’s (2004) extremely extensionist study of other mothering that includes Black male gender is excluded, because it can be changed into other fathering. The findings indicate that maternal instinct is rejected as a single factor for Sweetness to necessarily be a mother. Her parturition and lactation capacities do not guarantee that she can appropriately perform her mothering missions, as an adequate other mother like Queen Olive can have an opportunity to be Booker’s and Bride’s caretakers.

Keywords

Other Mothering
Healing
Resistance
Toni Morrison
God Help the Child

Subjects

Applications of Language Studies

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 17 December 2025

  • Receive Date 10 August 2025
  • Revise Date 11 October 2025
  • Accept Date 17 December 2025

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