Parents: Who Needs 'em?!

As I watched "Gingerbread" and "Normal Again" and read Turn of the Screw, I was struck by the significance placed on parental roles. Whether they are skewed, emphasized, or utterly absent, influence by parents or parental figures seems to be a reoccurring theme throughout the texts and episodes we study. In "Gingerbread", we obviously see examples of bad parents. Willow's mom shows little to no interest in her daughter's life until completely the wrong time, and then does not even try to fully understand it, and Buffy's mom essentially starts a war against the world her daughter has no choice but to establish. The moment when Joyce adds "The Slayers" to the list of beings taking over Sunnydale, we see that she has turned against her daughter in true bad parent style. But even before that she isn't winning any mom of the year awards. She gets in Buffy's way while she's slaying, and shows dangerously too much interest in her daughter's pursuits. In this way, she's a bit like the Governess, although she far from smothers Buffy in the literal sense.

On the note of the Governess, I have to say I agree with Amelia from our discussion last week that the Governess's interest in the children, while not blatant sexual attraction, borders on perversion. The role of mother has been altered drastically from what we expect and find comfort in, and that's why it disturbs us and why some of us may choose not to accept it. Turn of the Screw is not the first place we've seen this element: in Dracula, Lucy's first victims are children, which she lures to her with motherly affection and then feeds on almost lustfully.

Finally, in "Normal Again" we see parents once more in a world they have been absent from for quite some time. Buffy's mother has been dead for a year, and her father has been off doing whatever he does. Buffy is working a dead end job just to make ends meet and support her sister and friends who live with her, and even Giles has left the picture. She has not parental figure. In the institution world, Buffy's parents are both living, both present, and still married. It follows that Buffy finds this world more appealing because of the presence of these parental figures. Similarly, when Buffy dies she goes to heaven, which to her means she is no longer responsible for and no longer has to worry about her friends and family. She almost chooses the institution over the "real world" because she wouldn't be responsible there either. Even though she chooses the "real world" in the end, it is her mother who gives her the strength to do so.

To sum up, parents are key figures in the Gothic tradition, or so it seems to me. When they play their role properly, they inspire their children to make the right decision or be strong. When they are one extreme or another, overly present or completely absent, or when their role is perverted by others, chaos inevitably follows.