the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

core: "Daughter? I don't have any daughter. I had a son and
he died. Now I am childless.. . I will pray to god for her
unhappiness.
me" (DH . 178).
9 9
Let her know more sorrow than she has given
3.3.5. Probing into the mother-daughter bond In Beloved,
Morrlson however suggests that such a bond 1s fundamental to
the psychological development of both mother and daughter.
MOrrlSOn explores thls relatlonshlp withln the context of a
particular hlstorlcal period and soclal arrangement --
slavery -- hlghlrghtlng the psychologlcal damage of slavery
to the mother-chlld relationship
3.3.5.1. Beloved's feellngs for her mother begln wlth
relectlon at belng deprlved of a symbiotic unlty wlth her,
to splte and retrlbutlon for havlng been murdered by her, to
dependency as a consequence of fragmented lnfancy, to an
attempt at understanding her, and later merglng with her
Both Separation and merglng ocmr alternately In the mother-
daughter relatlonshlp in the novel -- Beloved's ~dentlty
constantly merges with that of Sethe's
Thls 1s
particularly slgniflcant as Beloved was hardly two when she
dled
As Nancy Chodorow explains, the mother "acts as
external ego, provides holding and nourishment, and 1s in
fact not experienced by the infant as a separate person at
all" (Samuels and Hudson-Weems 1990 : 1041
Even after her