The Mothers

How does Bennett use injuries to the body—including Luke’s injured leg and Robert’s accident—as a recurring motif to symbolize emotional or psychological injuries? How do physical injuries and the characters’ responses to them serve as catalysts for confronting hidden psychological traumas?

Beyond their contrasting views of motherhood, to what degree is the friendship between Nadia and Aubrey founded on mutual misperceptions? When do they fail to understand each other, and what psychological obstacles impede this understanding?

How does the recurring motif of water connect the novel’s central concerns of birth, death, secrecy, and purification? Trace the shifting symbolic meanings of this motif, citing specific examples.

Examine how Bennett uses the liminal landscapes of Oceanside—the transient military base, the vast ocean, and the nearby US-Mexico border—as active settings. Discuss how these in-between spaces reflect the characters’ moral ambiguity and their precarious positions between belonging and alienation.

The book positions Latrice Sheppard as a primary antagonist, but to what extent is she a complex or dynamic character? Can her manipulative actions be understood as a desperate, albeit flawed, form of maternal protection within the rigid patriarchal structure of her church?

By analyzing Luke’s attempts at atonement, from his physical rehabilitation to his church ministry, trace his development toward accepting accountability for his actions. What specific events or conversations help him to understand The Lifelong Process of Forgiveness?

The first-person plural narrator is an unusual literary device. Compare Bennett’s use of the collective “we” in The Mothers with its function in another novel that employs a similar narrator, such as Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides. How do the purposes and effects of this narrative choice differ across the texts?

Analyze how Nadia’s relationship with the golden baby feet pin encapsulates the novel’s complex theme of motherhood as both aspiration and burden. Does her relationship with this object transcend its intended use as anti-choice propaganda?