A Heart Breaking And Emotional Story Of The Ugly By Constance Briscoe

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Ugly by Constance Briscoe is a heart breaking and emotional story about a young black girl, dealing with an abusive and neglectful mother in the racist times of the 60’s.

The relationship between Constance and her mother, Carmen, is utterly terrifying. The amount of times Carmen hit and beats Constance is sad, and at some points utterly heart breaking. When having a choice to make between her children, it’s always painfully obvious that she always chooses her other children over Constance, the hand-me downs and second hand presents at Christmas showed this time and time again. To Carmen, being mother and daughter meant nothing to her, as she continued her abuse of Constance throughout her life, a disturbing reminder that Carmen did not …show more content…

One of the times being when Constance thinks of someone buying her a new dress, but keeps her mouth shut and doesn’t press any further. It’s horrible that since Constance has been treated like this for so long, she’s gotten the habit of keeping her thoughts to herself out of fear for being “ungrateful”. The most terrifying part was proven at the very beginning when she did not care at all about Constance’s well being, a point made time and time again, especially when Constance was so angry with being “ugly” to her mother, that she drank Domestos, a bleach that kills germs since Constance was always told the she was just an “ugly germ” by her very own mother. It makes me more terrified and sad when Constance did not die of the bleach, that Carmen was very unwilling to go to the doctor and didn’t even want to go near her. The agonizing moments felt from this moment is only the beginning of the horrible relationship, that at some points was very emotional. Mothers are supposed to something special to their children, some whom they know they can trust, and talk to, something that will never happen between Constance and Carmen. Carmen did not consider Constance anything to her, a fact which terrifies me since Carmen is the one who bore Constance and should hold a very special bond with Constance as her

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