Human experience can best be understood in the framework of collective social relations. Like any other tie, the mother-daughter relationship is forged not in isolation but informed by cultural, historical, and social...Human experience can best be understood in the framework of collective social relations. Like any other tie, the mother-daughter relationship is forged not in isolation but informed by cultural, historical, and social values, circumstances, and practices. The twentieth century has witnessed the greatest changes in world history. As an outcome of the noticeable shift in gender ideologies in the last half of that century, modern mothers and daughters struggled to experience a union, a bond, an understanding of themselves and the world around them. Clash of tradition and modernity in ideals and mores can be held accountable for the consequential neurotic development of the psyche in twentieth century mothers and daughters. Doris Lessing＇s writings reflect the way in which these complex changes in society affect family relationships. Her first novel of the Children of Violence series, Martha Quest, is an apt study of a mother and her daughter＇s struggle with their newly defined roles in society. This paper will seek to examine the conflicts that are encountered in the wake of such adjustments by contemporary mothers and daughters. In order to do so, the study will focus on an exploration of the kind of issues that Martha Quest and May Quest experience in Lessing＇s Martha Quest through approaches available in works by Carl Jung on his theory of the ＂mother complex＂.展开更多
文摘Human experience can best be understood in the framework of collective social relations. Like any other tie, the mother-daughter relationship is forged not in isolation but informed by cultural, historical, and social values, circumstances, and practices. The twentieth century has witnessed the greatest changes in world history. As an outcome of the noticeable shift in gender ideologies in the last half of that century, modern mothers and daughters struggled to experience a union, a bond, an understanding of themselves and the world around them. Clash of tradition and modernity in ideals and mores can be held accountable for the consequential neurotic development of the psyche in twentieth century mothers and daughters. Doris Lessing＇s writings reflect the way in which these complex changes in society affect family relationships. Her first novel of the Children of Violence series, Martha Quest, is an apt study of a mother and her daughter＇s struggle with their newly defined roles in society. This paper will seek to examine the conflicts that are encountered in the wake of such adjustments by contemporary mothers and daughters. In order to do so, the study will focus on an exploration of the kind of issues that Martha Quest and May Quest experience in Lessing＇s Martha Quest through approaches available in works by Carl Jung on his theory of the ＂mother complex＂.
