I could probably write three books on crappy mothers in literature (not to mention the angelic ones like Caroline Ingalls or Marmee), but a simple blog post will have to suffice as I reflect on a few of literature’s most insufficient, yet appealing, moms.  Who would you add to this  list?

Scarlett O’Hara, Gone With the Wind:  Scarlett is not beautiful, nor is she a good mother at all.  We can barely chasten Rhett Butler for telling her a cat is a better mother than she, for Mrs. Hamilton/Kennedy/Butler extravagantly neglects the sheepish son and the ugly daughter who precede lovely little Bonnie Blue.  (Side note:  Margaret Mitchell’s portrayal of Wade Hampton Hamilton’s reaction to the events of the siege of Atlanta are brilliant and well worth rereading for anyone looking to learn a great lesson about conveying terror, the sweep of historical events, and the plot intricacies of main characters)  Though Scarlett gets punished for her neglectful motherhood in the end, we can’t help but wonder how her own angelic mom’s lessons never managed to wear off on her…and somehow manage to identify with her all the same.

Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest: Okay, so Joan isn’t exactly a fictional character, though God only knows how fictitious her daughter’s famous tell-all memoir really is.  One fact, however, is abundantly clear:  JOAN CRAWFORD WAS AN EVIL MOTHER.  Attempted stranglings?  Throwing her daughter’s adopted status in her face?  Wire-hangered beatings?  Yeah.  Chalk it up to old Joan, who really knew how to bring the drama to her trainwreck family.

Mrs. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice: Our next selection is not so much a terrible mother as a very…misguided one.  Burdened with the cross of five daughters to marry off, Mrs. Bennet has many pressing worries.  But worse than her bumbling around all matrimonial affairs is a complete disregard of her daughters’ feelings that we have to admit seems excessive, even for the turn of the nineteenth century.  Mrs. Bennet is also…clueless.  “My poor nerves, you tear them to pieces! But I never complain.”

Ingrid Magnussen, White Oleander: Cruelty, neglect, abandonment, and even murder are all on good old Ingrid’s plate at some point, but once again the emotional aspects of the relationship between this anti-heroine and her daughter are of the most interest to me.  It isn’t that Ingrid is evil (she is)…it’s that she is utterly unable to identify with the daughter she gave birth to, and Janet Fitch explores the fallout of a mother’s failure in a pulpy, poignant read.