Zarah's Mother | |
---|---|
Vital statistics | |
Race | Philistines |
Age | Unknown |
Height | Unknown |
Weight | Unknown |
Zarah's mother is the unnamed Philistine woman from Gezer with whom Hebrew judge Samson had a relationship that produced their daughter, and Branan's half sister, the Maiden of Thunder. Zarah's mother is sketched as a middle-aged matronly woman and appears only once in the comic, in volume three.
Personality[]
Zarah's mother is delineated as a somewhat grouchy woman who bears much hostility in her heart toward Samson, the father of her child. Tellingly, she refers to Samson as Zarah's "departed father," conspicuously omitting the "dearly" part of the expression. She also calls him "clay-brained," "no good," and "dog-hearted," indicating her deep-seated bitterness over Samson's womanizing, gallivanting ways back in the day when they were an item.
Despite the subject of Samson being a sore spot between mother and daughter, there is every reason to believe that Zarah's mother is a good woman who provides admirably for her daughter and has sacrificed much to raise Zarah right as a single parent. Zarah's superb health and superior physical condition is surely evidence of the excellent way Zarah's mother has cared for her child.
Although she doesn't seem to have moved past Samson's abandoning her the way Branan's mother has, most readers understand the animosity Zarah's mother harbors toward her former lover Samson, being that he left her to rear their daughter alone at a time when being without a father was a serious social stigma. However, she clearly did the best she could as a mother to do right by her child and is to be praised for raising such a talented, respectable girl like Zarah.