The Mothers

by

Brit Bennett

Nadia’s mother, and Robert Turner’s wife. By the beginning of The Mothers, Elise has already committed suicide. Nadia often thinks about her mother’s choice to take her own life, wondering what, exactly, led her to shoot herself in the head. This question is unanswerable, but that doesn’t stop Nadia from wondering if perhaps she was a burden to her mother. After all, Elise got pregnant when she was quite young, but she was too religious to seek out an abortion. As such, Nadia considers whether or not her mother would have ultimately been happier if she had gotten an abortion, thinking that maybe Elise would still be alive if she hadn’t followed through with her pregnancy. In addition to these uncomfortable thoughts, Nadia has to face the congregation’s quiet anger over Elise’s suicide. While sitting at her mother’s funeral, Nadia feels “pity” and “anger” radiating toward her, ultimately sensing Upper Room’s harsh judgment of Elise’s actions.

Elise Turner Quotes in The Mothers

The The Mothers quotes below are all either spoken by Elise Turner or refer to Elise Turner. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Secrecy, Gossip, and Storytelling Theme Icon
).
Chapter One  Quotes

She was startled by how rarely she had been alone back then. Her days felt like being handed from person to person like a baton, her calculus teacher passing her to her Spanish teacher to her chemistry teacher to her friends and back home to her parents. Then one day, her mother’s hand was gone and she’d fallen, clattering to the floor.

Related Characters: Nadia Turner, Elise Turner
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Two Quotes

Her mother had been able to tell when she’d had a bad day at school moments after she climbed into the car. What happened? Her mother used to ask, even before Nadia had said hello. Her father had never been that perceptive, but a pregnancy wasn’t a bad day at school—he would notice that she was panicking, he would have to. She was grateful so far that he hadn’t, but it scared her, how you could return home in a different body, how something big could be happening inside you and no one even knew it.

Related Characters: Nadia Turner, Robert Turner, Elise Turner
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Three Quotes

At her mother’s funeral, in the front pew, she’d felt pity radiating toward her, along with a quiet anger that everyone was too polite to express, though she’d felt its heat tickling the back of her neck. “Who is in a position to condemn? Only God,” the pastor had said, opening his eulogy. But the fact that he’d led with that scripture only meant that the congregation had already condemned her mother, or worse, that he felt her mother had done something deserving of condemnation. […]

How dare anyone at the church judge her mother? No one knew why she’d wanted to die. The worst part was that Upper Room’s judgment had made Nadia start to judge her mother too.

Related Characters: Nadia Turner, Elise Turner, The Pastor (John Sheppard)
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Four Quotes

How could a woman like that kill herself? Aubrey knew it was a stupid question—anyone could kill herself, if she wanted to badly enough. Mo said that it was physiological. Misfired synapses, unbalanced chemicals in the brain, the whole body a machine with a few tripped wires that had caused it to self-destruct. But people weren’t just their bodies, right? The decision to kill yourself had to be more complicated than that.

Related Characters: Aubrey Evans, Elise Turner, Monique (Mo)
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Mothers LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Mothers PDF

Elise Turner Quotes in The Mothers

The The Mothers quotes below are all either spoken by Elise Turner or refer to Elise Turner. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Secrecy, Gossip, and Storytelling Theme Icon
).
Chapter One  Quotes

She was startled by how rarely she had been alone back then. Her days felt like being handed from person to person like a baton, her calculus teacher passing her to her Spanish teacher to her chemistry teacher to her friends and back home to her parents. Then one day, her mother’s hand was gone and she’d fallen, clattering to the floor.

Related Characters: Nadia Turner, Elise Turner
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Two Quotes

Her mother had been able to tell when she’d had a bad day at school moments after she climbed into the car. What happened? Her mother used to ask, even before Nadia had said hello. Her father had never been that perceptive, but a pregnancy wasn’t a bad day at school—he would notice that she was panicking, he would have to. She was grateful so far that he hadn’t, but it scared her, how you could return home in a different body, how something big could be happening inside you and no one even knew it.

Related Characters: Nadia Turner, Robert Turner, Elise Turner
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Three Quotes

At her mother’s funeral, in the front pew, she’d felt pity radiating toward her, along with a quiet anger that everyone was too polite to express, though she’d felt its heat tickling the back of her neck. “Who is in a position to condemn? Only God,” the pastor had said, opening his eulogy. But the fact that he’d led with that scripture only meant that the congregation had already condemned her mother, or worse, that he felt her mother had done something deserving of condemnation. […]

How dare anyone at the church judge her mother? No one knew why she’d wanted to die. The worst part was that Upper Room’s judgment had made Nadia start to judge her mother too.

Related Characters: Nadia Turner, Elise Turner, The Pastor (John Sheppard)
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Four Quotes

How could a woman like that kill herself? Aubrey knew it was a stupid question—anyone could kill herself, if she wanted to badly enough. Mo said that it was physiological. Misfired synapses, unbalanced chemicals in the brain, the whole body a machine with a few tripped wires that had caused it to self-destruct. But people weren’t just their bodies, right? The decision to kill yourself had to be more complicated than that.

Related Characters: Aubrey Evans, Elise Turner, Monique (Mo)
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis: