Ursa And Generations. Essay, Research Paper

Ursa and Generations.

It is difficult to come up with a logical explanation of why Ursa’s doctors decided to remove her womb and therefore leaving her infertile after suffering a fall down the stairs. She was described as three months pregnant at the time of the fall, so her losing the fetus makes sense, but this hardly seems to justify taking her womb out.

Ursa places full blame on Mutt and he stands out as the logical person toward whom she harbors all of her resentment. He was drunk at the time of her accident and from prior account Mutt was insanely jealous, protective and did not want Ursa working. One can not help but wonder how many black women during this period of American History were given hysterectomies for irrational reasons.

It seems Ursa’s emotions are pulled in different directions. Unfortunately, she not only had to deal with the physical and emotional pain of not being able to bear children but also confronted the reality that the history of her family and Corregidora would end with her.

At times, I found it selfish of Great-Gram and Gram to burden the story of Corregidora on Ursa at such a young age. I understand that they did not wish their history and memories to die with them, but the way in which Ursa responds with her emotions indicated to me she was traumatized by their memories. Once she became infertile, she was not able to completely heal emotionally, and she felt she was not complete or not woman enough because she did not have a womb.

Ursa became the vessel of Gram’s and Great-Gram’s unrecorded history, and even if she did not know it, she was filled with all their hurt, anger and humiliation. The way for her to release these feelings would have been to “create generations” and pass on the family story, something the surgical removal of her womb denied her.

When she goes back to Mutt in the end, it may seem that she has gone in a circle and back to the man who hurt her to begin with, but I believe she had finally healed and not only had forgiven him but the generations before her and even herself for letting her Gram and Great-Gram down.