Malay Oyster Boy Blog 1

Anchor Baby and Mother

The story that I decided to analyze is Anchor Baby and all in all I think the main point that Burton is trying to get at here is that too often girls throw themselves away for something that is ultimately not what they imagined it to be mostly in the form of marriage having children. The lady in the sea seems to be alone and her desire to be one of the people on land is what pushes her to give up her life in the ocean and it seems that she does so without really considering the potential consequences of her actions. All she can see is what she allows herself to see; she does not critically analyze the situation by not thinking of the bad possibilities, but only the good ones. Her loneliness is the motivating force behind her wanting to go to land disguised as wanting Walker for herself. Perhaps she is an outsider in her community and just wants to be accepted somewhere else by someone else. The lady of the sea’s Jungian archetype is The Lover. She wants intimacy and experience even though it comes at the risk (and ultimately results in) her losing her own identity.

            The anchor baby is the consequence she faces as a result of not being more caring for herself and letting her desires completely engulf her. I would argue that the anchor baby is somewhat of a physical representation of the feelings of outsiderness and loneliness that the lady of the sea felt before she met Walker on land. Her emotions are now anchored to her and the thing she once tried getting rid of is now what she ends up with again and everything in this sense is completed. She begins a lonely person and ends a lonely person tied down by this anchor baby (her emotions). This is one of the few stories where I would say that there is a sense of resolution for this fact. As a child Burton was alone and was an outsider and arguably one of the anchors that always held him down was the fact that his parents neglected him as a child and perhaps what Burton is trying to get at here is not only the idea that women too easily throw themselves away, but also that people have these anchors that weigh them down through out their lives and in some cases that comes in the form of giving up ones own identity for someone else or being an outsider and neglected.