the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

process of disidentification and the primary negative models
for the daughterr7 (1989:ll).
view
Betty Friedan shares this
In my generation, many of us knew we did not want
to be like our mothers, even when we loved them.
We could not help but see their dlsappolntment ...
they could not glve us an image of what we could
be. They could only tell us that their lives were
too empty, tied to home, that children, cooking,
clothes, brldge, and charities were not enough
(1971 72).
Fernlnists however over-rule Freudlan psychoanalys~s that
vlews the rage of daughters towards their mothers as
resentment for not havlng been glven a penls
3.3.0. In Meridian. The Diviners, The Summer Before the
Dark and The Dark Holds No Terrors, the daughters see thelr
mothers as havlng taught them a compromise and self-hatred
they are struggling to be free of
They hate their mothers
to the polnt of matrophobla where they experience a dread
that if they relax their guard, they may ldentlfy wlth the
nother completely
The mother stands for the vlctlm In
themselves, the unfree woman, the martyr; and so the
daughters do not want to be vessels of thelr mothers'
frustration and self-denial
Not only thelr mothers, even
Other women who identlfy themselves primarily as mothers
seem threatening and repelling to the daughters who feel
unequal to the mother role.