Family Theme Analysis

“Gorilla, My Love” examines the benefits and limitations of Hazel’s family ties. Mama, Daddy, Granddaddy, Hunca Bubba, Aunt Daisy, and Hazel all have strong opinions and outspoken personalities, making them a collective force to be reckoned with. However, the story highlights how family can be both a help and a hindrance. Although Hazel’s intense devotion to her family values provides her with support and moral guidance, her strict adherence to their values also limits her perspective and makes it difficult for her to accept new people into the family’s fold.

Hazel’s family provides her with a strong sense of security, whether they’re giving her emotional support or backing her up in a fight. The depiction of a suffering Christ in King of Kings causes Hazel to reflect, “just about anybody in my family is better than this god they always talkin about.” She muses about what her family would do if her brother Big Brood were up on the cross, which in her imagination is more like being stuck in a tree than being gruesomely tortured. She imagines Daddy calling for a ladder, Mama and Aunt Daisy “jumpin on them Romans beatin them with they pocketbooks,” and Hunca Bubba “tellin them folks on they knees they better get out the way and go get some help or they goin to get trampled on.” The fantasy ends with her brother in the park and her family in the kitchen yelling and “throwin dishes,” but it gives Hazel a greater sense of security than religion. She has more faith in her family to support her in a crisis than in any religious doctrine, which makes her even more exasperated with the religious film that replaces Gorilla, My Love.

Hazel’s parents advise her to act and speak with integrity, and Hazel clings to the strong moral compass they’ve given her. “If anybody don’t like it,” her mother says, “tell em to come see your mama.” Hazel’s mother is always ready to advocate for her children when they face problems with racist teachers at school. “She stalk in with her hat pulled down bad and that Persian lamb coat draped back over one hip on account of she got her fist planted there so she can talk that talk which gets us all hypnotized,” Hazel recalls. Hazel’s mother is also willing to admit when Hazel is right when they are having an argument. Hazel’s father echoes this behavior when he decides not to beat her for setting the movie theater on fire. Hazel explains she only got into trouble because she was acting out of the integrity they instilled in her: the movie theater dishonestly showed the wrong movie and the manager refused to refund her, so she took matters into her own hands. Hazel feels a sense of security knowing that her parents listen to her and raised her with strong values.

While Hazel’s family is a positive force in her life because they provide her with moral guidance and support, her unflinching devotion to her family also has some drawbacks, as she is deeply suspicious of outsiders and anyone who threatens the family dynamic. When Hunca Bubba announces his intention to marry a young woman, Hazel feels jealous of his attention and resentful that he is not keeping the joking promise he made to marry her when she was little. She believes his excitement about his future wife “aint enough to keep the mind alive” and dismisses the photo he shows her and her brother as just “some skinny woman in a countrified dress with her hand shot up to her face like she shame fore cameras.” Hazel does not register this woman as a future family member and views her with the same contempt she reserves for grownups who “think they can treat you just anyhow,” including her teachers and the cheating cinema manager. Hazel, of course, is too young to understand that she can’t marry her uncle and is thus even more infuriated when her uncle explains that he “was just teasin’” about wanting to marry her. Her oversimplified views of family loyalty transform the joyous occasion of an upcoming wedding into a tragedy, and she and Baby Jason begin to cry.

Not only does Hunca Bubba’s impending marriage threaten Hazel’s faith in her support network, but it also challenges her sense of self. She has always identified as a member of a family that values integrity, and this betrayal leaves her worldview in tatters. With this, the story suggests that identifying too closely with family can actually be harmful, even if that family is usually a source of support and solidarity.