In the essays "Disconnections from the Motherline: Gender Hegemonies and the Loss of the Ancient Properties; The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby" and "Maternal Interventions: Resistance and Power; The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Paradise," Andrea O'Reilly, a women's studies professor, proclaims that African-American women pass on cultural knowledge to successive generations through the process of motherline: “the ancestral memory and ancient properties of traditional black culture.[16] O’Reilly claims that The Bluest Eye portrays how attempting to assimilate to white American ideologies effectively undermines the motherline process for African-American women.[16]