Reading Mothers and Daughters

This theoretical study broadly explores the intersection of history, psychological theory, and literature in understanding mother- daughter relationships in Western culture. This interdisciplinary approach incorporates accounts of mother-daughter relationships in the context of changing Western family configurations since the Colonial era, with a particular emphasis on debunking contemporary myths of the white, middle-class nuclear family as "normal," standard, and ahistorical. This study also explores formulations of mother-daughter relationships in selected Western psychoanalytic and feminist theories. It ties classical psychoanalytic tendencies towards racist and classist thinking, mother-blame, and pathology with political and cultural forces, and feminist affirmation of mothers and daughters across race, culture, class, and sexual orientation. Finally, this work explores the subjective accounts of mothers and daughters through the medium of two contemporary memoirs and one novel.