The Husband’s Mother Character Analysis

The husband’s mother is the little boy’s grandmother and the woman’s mother-in-law. Though little is directly revealed about her, she is often referred to as “that wise old witch” throughout the story, which is a reminder that this inner narrative is the bedtime story that the narrator is telling herself. In fairytales—including the story of Sleeping Beauty, which the little boy’s mother tells him as a bedtime story—the witch is almost always the evil antagonist. It’s interesting, then, that the narrator tacks on the word “wise,” as it positions the husband’s mother as a wise elder helping the hero succeed. Indeed, the husband’s mother is brimming with advice: when she appears throughout the story, it’s to remind the husband and wife to further insulate themselves from outsiders—namely, the impoverished black people who have been relegated to the fringes of the city under apartheid’s strict racial segregation. (For example, she gifts her son and daughter-in-law bricks for Christmas so that they can make the wall surrounding their property higher and harder to climb.) In this way, the husband’s mother largely functions as a mouthpiece for the dangerous spirit of fear, possessiveness, and distrust toward black people that abounds in the white suburbs. Far from helping the story’s protagonists succeed, the husband’s mother is a key part of the family’s undoing.