![]() ![]() ![]() Even today, though, mothers and daughters feel like the New World of literature-a realm barely explored, waiting for its Westward expansion.ĭivided into seven sections-each named after a key concept of Winnicott’s theories of infant development- Are You My Mother? flouts writing-school rules. In the 20 th century, Virginia Woolf (in her essays) and Sylvia Plath (in “Morning Song”) began to make great work out of the ambivalent intensities of mother-daughter relations, which, after all, are rife with dramatic possibility. One can attribute this mostly to the fact that it was men who were doing the scribbling for so long, while the best women writers, like the Brontes and Austen, often steered clear of the subject the literature of motherhood that did exist was largely sentimental. Plenty of memorable mothers populate novels and plays, from Medea to Proust’s Maman, but writing about filial relations between women is thin on the ground. It’s remarkable that until the beginning of the 21 st century, the drama of mothers and daughters remained relatively unexplored in literature. Next month, the Slate Audio Book Club will discuss Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? ![]()
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