𝚃𝙷𝚁𝙴𝙴 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚂 𝙰𝙵𝚃𝙴𝚁 her assumed death post-returning from scotland, after her loved ones had grieved and learned to accept –––– nancy drew seemingly returns from the grave, from what seems to be an elaborate resurrection from out of nowhere. after briefly reconnecting with her father and loved ones in river heights, and borrowing an office and apartment from her aunt eloise, nancy settled in new york to begin her own one-man private investigating business, where it seems as if time hadn’t passed at all. through old contacts and colleagues, nancy receives cases and works hard to solve what hurts her clients, to right any wrongs and deliver her own retribution. if asked why she returned, she would say that she simply could not stand sitting around anymore ––– she needed to help people, to be someone’s justice. but there’s an anxiety that grows in nancy: this will all come to an end very soon. since her trip to scotland, where she learned the truth about her mother and saved millions from the terrorist group revenant, one would think that nancy has been unable to shake the feeling that she is being watched, and a certain time is being waited for. they would be right: since her trip she has received numerous death threats that resulted in her presumed death, and since returning, she’s sure that revenant is watching her.
𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙴𝚂:
this is the default verse, and all threads will be put in this verse unless stated / plotted otherwise!
this canon follows certain river heights and certain dynamics canon found in nancy drew and the hardy boys: the big lie
𝙼𝙴𝚃𝙰: 𝙽𝙰𝙽𝙲𝚈'𝚂 𝙲𝚄𝚁𝚁𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙰𝙿𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃. as of right now, nancy is living in a brooklyn apartment owned by her aunt eloise. it’s a live - work unit, meaning that the lower unit is used for office space, while the upper unit is a living area –– a one bedroom, one bathroom space with an open kitchen and dining area that leads into a living space. there’s a half bathroom with a glass shower and his - and - her sinks, and the bedroom is very spacious as well, with windows that show the back of the apartment. there is also a double door office, a unique addition to the home.
one. when one first walks into the apartment they enter the kitchen. it’s a big space as it is joined by the dining room, and the cabinets are a deep blue color. it’s the only pop of color in the space, as the rest of the appliances are stainless steel and the dining room set is a light brown and white set with matching chairs and bench. there’s not many decorations in here, other than the odd paraphernalia from work. otherwise, nancy keeps the kitchen and dining area very clean, for no reason in particular other than she’s very rarely using it.
two. next comes the living area, where there is a small flatscreen television snug between two bookshelves that are filled to their brims with novels. opposite of the television is a couch that she bought for cheap, as well as a small coffee table made of glass. nancy has some houseplants that she cares for, but not many. the walls are bare in this room, and things are also kept equally as tidy in here. her bookshelves are filled with primarily nonfiction and literary criticism, as well as some books on crime scenes and crime types. she has one copy of valley of the dolls.
three. nancy’s bedroom is separated from the rest of the apartment by a door. inside is a large queen sized bed that stands atop a jagged - patterned rug, and across from the bed are some sitting chairs. this is where nancy keeps her main desk, right across from the windows on the opposite side of the room, closer to the bed. this room is her most used room, as the privacy of her bedroom is something she treasures. no one has yet to see what her bedroom looks like, as far as she’s concerned. besides her bed is a side table on the right side, where she keeps her revolver. there’s not much personalization in this room besides what was already here when she moved in, so one would not really think anyone lived there. there is also a small closet in the bedroom, right besides nancy’s desk.
four. the bathroom is nancy’s messiest room, with the sink being splattered with bottled products. in one corner is nancy’s makeup, splayed around uncaringly. in another corner is a stack of folded hand towels she forgot to put away. while she makes sure not to leave any water marks anywhere, she has a lot of clutter in the area. the shower is a glass box with a moveable head. there are no windows in this room.
five. the final room in the house is a double door office, with two conjoined office spaces. nancy suspects this was a random choice of room for eloise, possibly with her in mind. here, nancy has one desktop set up on the righthand side of the office and the other one is just bare.
𝙲𝙰𝚂𝙴 #𝟺𝟻𝟺𝟹: 𝙼𝚁. 𝙱𝙸𝙶. the hardy boys and i worked together on my most recent adventure, some seedy businessman smuggling weaponry overseas to some organization in london, calling themselves the undertakers and seeing themselves as harbingers of death. we paid him a little visit on his private yacht after getting one of his cohorts, mr. timothy shoe, to squeal on his whereabouts. remind me to tell the boys to work on their negotiation skills –– joe’s too eager with his fists when it comes to tight mouths.
the presence of nancy’s mother, or perhaps the lack of presence, is something that has impacted nancy for as long as she can remember. katherine drew was emotionally distant, although present physically in nancy’s life –– this emotional distance prevented nancy from developing an actual relationship with her. this essay will explore the depths of their relatoinship, as well as focus on the existence of the mother wound and the constant equation of love with provision. i will also focus on how the lack of emotional connection between nancy and her mother has impacted nancy.
1. THE MOTHER WOUND + THE DEAD MOTHER.
the dead mother complex, coined by andré green, is not a real death of a mother, but rather “an imago which has been constituted in the child’s mind, following maternal depression, brutally transforming a living object... into a distant figure, toneless, practically inanimate.... the dead mother ... is a mother who remains alive, but who is... physically dead in the eyes of the young child [in her care].”¹ this idea follows a thought of castration (in the sense of vitality, life) anxiety –––– the mother has been removed, quickly and terribly, from the child and the child acts as if there is an actual wound that has affected them. with this complex, the child is suffering from severe loss and deprivation. green continues, “the essential characteristic of [this] depression is that it takes place in the presence of the object, which is itself absorbed by bereavement. the mother, for one reason or another, is depressed.” ² in this case, nancy’s mother had experienced some vague loss, perhaps the loss of her child-les living, her freedom, which then turned into her working constantly, which then turned into her love becoming separated from nancy. this decathexis (the process of dis-investment of mental or emotional effort into a person) as an “act of murder”³ unto the child, but instead of an actual murder, there is a hole in the child’s psychic world – they are lacking something that they crave and need, in this case, a mother’s emotional affection.
the mother wound follows in this step, with this wound being, quite literally, the aftermath of a mother depriving her child of emotional attention and love. because of the mother wound, a child may find it’s difficult to reconnect with their mother. there is an explicit lack of connection and affection between them, the ties severed immediately –– the mother - child relationship has, forever or just for now, been completely lost, both parties unable and unwilling to repair it.
2. HOW (BLACK) MOTHERS LOVE THEIR DAUGHTERS.
as (my portrayal of) nancy is Black, i want to talk exclusively on her relationship with her mother, katherine, from a Black feminist lens. as said above, nancy suffers from the mother wound, which is the aftermath of a mother depriving her child of emotional attention. in the media, Black mothers are portrayed as being not as affectionate towards their children as other parents, with something detrimental missing from the mother - daughter relationships. while this is true in actual life, it is not because of a great loss, as the dead mother complex suggests (although it may be compounded with such), but it is merely due to a Black mother wishing to socialize her child in a certain way.
white motherhood is distinctly different from Black motherhood: as written in Double Stitch: Black women Write about Mothers & Daughters, “the assumption of that motherhood and economic dependency on men are linked, and that to be a ‘good’ mother one must stay home, making motherhood a full time ‘occupation’ is [similarly] uncharacteristic of Black families” ⁴ oftentimes, Black women are not seen as “good” or decent mothers due to them being either single mothers, or due to the fact that mothering is not a job for them - it is usually accompanied by an outside work, often because the mother is not able to simply watch her children all day. white motherhood severely impacts how we view Black motherhood, and these views affect Black motherhood daily. in many ways, the inability to conform to white motherhood has made Black motherhood extremely unique. patricia hill collins writes that “whether they wanted to or not, the majority of [Black] women had to work and could not afford the luxury of motherhood as a non-economically productive, female ‘occupation’.” in this way, we begin to see how providing and working becomes part of Black motherhood, as well as plays a tremendously large role in what it means to be a mother, while simultaneously navigating the world as Black.
another large part of Black motherhood is socialization, specifically the socialization of daughters. as Black women experience and live in a society that is dominated by whiteness and individualism according to whiteness, “[mothers] must teach their daughters how to fit into systems of oppression.” ⁵ Black daughters are raised to expect work, as well as to expect and accept the differing and different (and heavier, than their white peers) responsibilities, in order to survive in this world, and to aid in the survival of those they will be eventually responsible for. historian elsa berkley brown describes it as "the need to socialize [me] one way and at the same time to give me all the tools i needed to be someone else.” ⁶ black girls are taught how to deal with the matrix of domination in this world (the interlocking structure of race, class and gender), and in order to be taught these things, the Black mother demonstrates certain skills dedicated to survival, such as providing for her daughter and ensuring basic necessities, in order to push them further than the mothers were able to go.
in terms of providing for the daughters, the effort to do so may cause emotional strain and effect the emotional intensity of Black mother-daughter relationships. Gloria Wade-Gayles states that, “mothers in Black women’s fiction are strong and devoted... but they are rarely affectionate.” ⁷ in socializing their daughters to be self-sufficient and independent, Black mothers often neglect the emotional aspect of motherhood. for Black daughters, growing up with physical care and protection is an act of love. ⁸ Renita Weems, author of Hush, Mama’s Gotta go Bye-Bye, includes a bit about this: “my mother loved us. i must believe that. she worked all day...” ⁹ in which love is equated with physical acts and providing. weems also notes, about school teachers, that they “did not have the onus of providing for me, so they had the luxury of talking to me.” ¹⁰ Renita Weems, in her article, also says this, regarding a lack of motherly affection, and how she gained something similar:
“What my mother was not able to give me, I learned to steal emotionally from other women. I longed from my own private smile from my mother. When it did not come, I learned to be smart enough to be refreshing and witty enough to be charming for others. Being the top student in my class was my way of securing the teachers’ affection and attention. I fought anybody who tried to take this away from me.” ¹¹
3. NANCY + KATHERINE.
nancy’s relationship with her mother was tense, which is a light way of explaining their relationship. as mentioned above, nancy’s mother lacked in a role of emotional presence, effectively making herself dead –– and yet she still provided for nancy as best as she could. in another vein, she was rarely inside her home. this mirrors Weems’ childhood, with her own mother leaving and promising to “be back in a while,” but still providing. however, instead of alocholism, nancy’s mother had an unhealthy obsession with her work. she was a detective of her own, working closely with an organization called ███████ which kept her busy constantly. nancy’s childhood was mixed with empty spaces in which her mother had separated herself from her family, and very few - if any at all - memories of her mother sleeping in the same bed as her father. despite these sweet memories, nancy’s mother was emotionally distant, replacing emotional affection with physical care and providing. katherine drew had severed her emotional connection with her daughter, but it was on purpose : in order to keep her daughter safe, she found it necessary to cut ties, so it would be easier to vanish from her life. and it was, though it left nancy distraught and desperate to fill the void that her mother had created, and now left.
as a result of this void, nancy has grown up to be self-sufficient and independent, which is how her mother had initially anticipated to raise her. she is alone most of the time, and happily so, but the emotional void is still there. sometimes she still feeds from the affection of older women, longing for their smiles and laughs, their kind words and more, in order to fill her hunger for this emotional connection. however, she has found this difficult to maintain, as now she must also commit to severing these ties in order to keep these women safe. thus, nancy is unable to completely recover from the lack of emotional (motherly) support, and will never be free from it.
¹ The Dead Mother: the Work of André Green. Routledge, 1999.
² ibid, pg. 149
³ idib, pg. 149
⁴ Dill, Bonnie Thornton. Our Mother's Grief: Racial Ethnic Women and the Maintenance of Families. Dept. of Sociology and Social Work, Memphis State University, 1986.; Carby, Hazel V. Reconstructing Womanhood: the Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. Oxford University Press, 1995.
⁵ Bell-Scott, Patricia. Double Stitch: Black Women Write about Mothers Et Daughters ; HarperPerennial, 1995.
⁶ Elsa Berkley Brown. Hearing our Mother’s Lives, paper presented at fifteenth anniversary of African American and African Studies at Emory College, Atlanta, 1986.
⁷ Wade-Gayles, G. (1984). The truths of our mothers' lives: Mother–daughter relationships in Black women's fiction. SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women, 1(2), pg.10
⁸ ibid.
⁹ Weems, Renita. Hush. Mama’s Gotta Go Bye-bye: A Personal Narrative. SAGE: A scholarly journal on Black Women.
₁₀ ibid.
¹¹ ibid.
nancy now, alive and living. or: i am alive, and i am too aware of myself.
ilya kaminsky, deaf republic: poems; “alfonso, in snow” / ada limón, “invasive” / holly warburton, “a face in the crowd” / clarice lespector, “Água Viva” tr. elizabeth lowe / @/heavensghost / octavio paz tr. eliot weinberger, selected poems; ‘Vrindaban’
