How is motherhood presented in any two or three stories in the collection?

The Martyrdom of Helena Rodrigues

I chose this story to represent motherhood as this story is mostly forcused on Helena being the mother of her son George in this story. This short story tells me about the life of george when his father died because of his mother Helena. As life continues with helena and george, george found it hard to accept the fact that he was being used by his selfish mother and the sentence 'you must not give up your time to me, george. You must marry that sweet Caroline and make your home with her.' This gentle words fell like acid on george's conscience. This tells me that george's mother Helena is selfish on the inside but she doesn't show it on the outside which makes it hard on people to notice. Her ultimate way to make people to do what she wants is to make them feel guilty over what they hve done to her.

Tanjong Rhu

Motherhood is shown in tanjong rhu is how Mr. Li's mother tries to stop Mr Li from giving her new morden things as she is still stuck with the past. Mr Li's mother isn't materialistic and she tries to teach Mr Li not to be so materialistic. mr Li notices his mother stuck to the past the refusing to change, he tries many ways to persuade her but failed in the end. This shows how much Mr Li loves his mother and Mr Li's mother wanted Mr Li to understand the past and how much love is given to him by she and his father.