the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

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takes place on a literal level too as Pique, like
Persephone, returns to her mother and discovers herself
through her, the reconciliation between past and present 1s
in fact the reconciliation between mother and daughter
According to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, to forget the
past is to ignore a matriarchal heritage which would enable
the herolne to find her own "distinctive female powerw
(cited in Hirsch 1989:44) In The Madwoman in the Attic,
the two feminlst wrlters see in motherlessness the emblem of
female powerlessness Maternal absence and sllence, they
argue, rob the heroine of Important role models for her
development, of the matriarchal power whlch could facilitate
her own growth into womanhood. The assumption is that even
within patriarchy, as the Demeter-Persephone relat-on
illustrates, women can be powerful lf connected with each
other
5.6.2. To rewrlte the story of mother-chlld relationship
from the maternal perspectlve. ln particular from the
perspective of the mother of a daughter, Toni Morrlson
adapts the woman-centered myth of Demeter and Persephone
It is in then nurturing functlon that the parallel between
Demeter and Sethe 1s most strrklngly obvlous. Just as
Demeter, the goddess of graln, nourashes the entlre world,
Morrison's Sethe has "milk enough for all" Demeter and
Persepkone's tale is told from the perspectlve of a bereaved