Moms

In Our Nig there are many mother figures in Frado's life, but none of which fully fill the role of a mom. Frado started off with poor Mag who ends up giving her away so that her husband and her can leave to find work. She is then placed in the hands of Mrs. Bellmont, her "mistress," who treats Frado absolutely terribly. Mrs. B does everything from simply scolding the child to physically beating her, as well as inflicting mental and emotional harm to her. Aunt Abby could also be seen as a motherly figure in Frado's life whom actually seems to care for Frado's well being, but is never fully able to protect her from Mrs. Bellmont in the way a true mother could. Finally, Mrs. Moore takes care of Frado when she is severely ill and nurtures her back to health several times, until Frado is ultimately a grown woman and is able to go off on her own and eventually get married.

This idea of multiple mothers is not so different from the classic idea in most Gothic novels of no mother at all. In almost all the other novels that do not include a living mother, there are children that grow up to be kinder and more successful, or at least more affluent in love and riches than those children that grew up with moms. You can see this in most of the stories we have looked at, including Jane Eyre, who ended up happier and more successful than her stepsisters with a mother, and The Castle of Otranto, where Conrad (who had a mother) ended up dying, but Theodore ends up successful and rich even though his mom had died. This same idea continues in Our Nig, in that every mother or mother figure that Frado had ended up leaving her at some point or was unable to fill that gap in her life, however she ends up successful and happy.