Mother-daughter relationship

In this article I argue that an account of non matricidal relations between
mothers and daughters should include an account of the transformative
process through which mothers and daughters can overcome the damage of phallocentrism. I further argue that as a lived experience, mother-daughter relations are always actualized in relations with a normative background, authoritative discursive practices, and social institutions, all of which constitute motherhood in different contexts. Transforming this space means challenging these contents and practices. Thus, it follows that creating non matricidal relations includes an aspect of witnessing in which the mother addresses to
the daughter her refusal of phallocentric practices and values. By becoming the addressee of the mother’s subjectivity, as expressed in her ethico-political refusal, the daughter constitutes relations of difference. Reading the biblical story of Lot’s wife and her daughters, I suggest that the act of witnessing the violence of divine law has constituted a space between Lot’s wife and her daughters wherein they could create a lineage based on resistance to phallocentric law and affirmation of an alternative ethics.

As its own micro institution, the family provides the day-to-day context in which roles and relationships are repeatedly (re)established, reinforced, and (re)negotiated. Consequently, parent-child interaction becomes a fertile site for exploring moments of conflict and resistance, as well as nurture and comfort. In no other parent-child- configuration are such moments prominently displayed as in the interaction between mothers and daughters – deemed one of the most conflictive, complex, and connective familial relationships. Despite ample interdisciplinary research on the maternal figure and the mother-daughter relationship, there is a paucity of studies analyzing the discourse of mothers and adolescent daughters in everyday interaction. Given also the highly scrutinized images of the maternal figure, a discourse analytic study provides another lens through which to view and understand this dynamic figure. The current study aims to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on the mother- daughter relationship, in general, and on the maternal figure, specifically, by examining (1) how various maternal roles emerge and shift in the daily interaction of one mother and her adolescent daughter; (2) what discursive strategies the mother employs when in these roles; and (3) how the mother’s roles and discourse strategies affect the interactional outcome with the adolescent daughter. Using videotaped and transcribed interactions between a mother and her 15 year old daughter in their family home over a two week period, the data were analyzed primarily from an interactional sociolinguistic perspective, using conversation analytic techniques as a tool for transcription and discursive analysis. Findings revealed that when the mother’s talk indexes the role of nurturer, interaction with the adolescent daughter is less contentious. Mother as Nurturer has positive interactional outcomes for the mother-daughter pair, despite the discursive strategies she employs when in this role. When the mother steps out of this role, and becomes the target of blame, partakes in martyrdom, engages in troubles telling or is being critical, the interactional outcome is disharmonious to varying degrees. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on the maternal figure. They also reveal the roles and interactional cues that bring about harmonious and disharmonious outcomes within the mother-daughter relationship. © Copyright Domenica Luvera DelPrete 2015 All Rights Reserved

With four waves of women's liberation movements in the twentieth century, the relationship between mothers and daughters has come under increasing, frequent, intense, and passionate examination. Scholars East and West have examined this bond, giving it a universal appeal. Among the voices that have come to create speech and meaning to this relationship are. Fouad (1964), the Egyptian writer, in her book Ila Ibnaty (To My Daughter) and Rich's 1976 classic feminist work, Of Women Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Concerning their definitions, this paper discusses the oppositional forms of the mother-daughter relationship in Amy Tan's Two Kinds and Lydia Davis' The Mother. In both short stories, Tan, with her Chinese traditions and American education, and Davis, whose background includes no ethnic derivations, explore the breakdown in communication in this problematic bond, aiming at reconstructing this richly influential relationship.

The conviction underlying this book is that if we accept vulnerability as a dominant condition of contemporary life, then we should question the philosophical image that understands vulnerability as the negativity of a so-called full life. Rather, vulnerability should be thought of as a new condition with its challenges and resources. My goal in this book is to suggest a way for people to live their vulnerability as a transformative power. I focus on the ways in which vulnerability can become an effective resource that connects people and supports their transformative political actions. I argue that focusing thusly on vulnerability holds a productive potential for suggesting new modalities of transformative processes and individual agency, as well as a new attentiveness on behalf of critical discourses in general and feminist philosophy in particular.

This paper seeks to study the relationship between the mother-daughter in two of her earliest novels; The Grass is Singing and Martha Quest, employing the ideas regarding this relationship discussed by Nancy Chodorow in her book The Reproduction of Mothering and argues that the protagonists of these two early novels by Lessing are essentially " matrophobic ". Their matrophobia, however, does not prevent them from being victims of the same fate as their mothers before them, particularly in the kind of lives they choose to lead and the marriages which trap the protagonists of both the novels.

Keywords: British Asian Literature, diasporic literature, women's literature, Preethi Nair Diasporic writings has emerged into a distinct literary genre today. The word 'diaspora', derived from the Greek word diaspeiro, means scattering of people from their land of origin. One of the central features of diasporic writing is a mapping out a journey. This is a journey from the centre of the immigrant's home culture to the periphery of the alien culture and again from the periphery of the alien culture to a different centre representing multi-culture, that is, a consciousness of at least two cultures or more. The paper proposes to study Preethi Nair's One Hundred Shades of White as representative of such a journey spanning three generations of women through the metaphor of cooking. Food is one of the most popular tools in the hands of diasporic women writers to express their longing, rejection and finally acceptance of their home culture. Against the backdrop of contemporary British Asian literature Nair's One hundred Shades of White stands out for her deep insight into the lives of the immigrants and her empathy with the characters. The novel is an unforgettable rendering of a mother and daughter's search for identity and 'wholeness' in an alien land and coming to terms with the 'duality' of their existence. Diasporic writing has emerged into a distinct literary genre today. The word 'diaspora', derived from the Greek word diaspeiro, means scattering of people. Though initially limited to the dispersal of Jews from their homeland, in this increasing era of globalization, it is applied to the numerous ethnic and racial groups living in an alien land. The immigrants who left their home countries for various reasons, voluntary and non-voluntary, had to construct afresh a sense of community, culture and nationality in a country where they were a minority. Thus, their writings deal with their own experiences of geographical dislocation, displacement, cultural ambivalence, social and political alienation and absence of centrality. On the one hand they express a longing

This article offers a close reading of Yannis Ritsos’s dramatic monologue ‘Persephone’ (1972) and argues for the need to adopt a gender-sensitive perspective on Ritsos’s work, one that will do justice to his politics but that will also take on board the gendered imaginary and discourse he draws and depends on. ‘Persephone’ forms part of Ritsos’s wide-ranging engagement with classical myth in most of his mature writing, where gender and political issues are firmly intertwined or even serve as a metaphor for one another. In my reading of the poem, I argue that ‘Persephone’ dramatizes a female’s Oedipal momentum on her road towards individuation and social connectedness within the rigid framework of both the Greek military junta (1967-1974) and the post-Stalinist era. Engaging a psychoanalytic feminist framework enables us to involve the Lacanian legacy regarding the role that language primarily plays in the formation of subjectivity. I focus more particularly on the theoretical perspective of Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva, both of whom place classical myth at the centre of their explorations of the modern subject. Despite their fundamentally disparate projects, they both draw on Lacan’s reading of Freud in order to give rise to a fundamental change in the realm of the Symbolic. To view, then, Persephone as an Oedipal subject provides an excellent resource for exploring the heroine’s attempt to define herself as a woman, as a citizen, as a Greek, and as a human being, within a complex web of power and discursive realities.

This paper deals with the narrative treatment of an obsessive theme in Alice
Munro’s fiction: the mother-daughter relationship. There are two problematic sets of
interrelations: the first one refers to the young daughter’s inability to deal with her
mother’s neurodegenerative disease, the second one concerns the adult daughter, especially
her revisiting of traumatic childhood experiences. Drawing on recent developments
in psychoanalysis and developmental psychology this paper analyzes the way
Munro presents family relationships, offering deep insights into her characters’ psychological
development and discussing the causes of the adult daughter’s apparent failure
to come to terms with her past.

Die vorliegende Arbeit hat die Untersuchung des Problems der Weiblichkeit im
Zusammenhang mit Gewalt im Roman Die Klavierspielerin von Elfriede Jelinek zum
Ziel. Im zweiten Kapitel dieser Bachelorarbeit wird der Roman insbesondere
hinsichtlich des Sprachstils und der Sprachkritik untersucht. Es wird die Sprache, die
Jelinek verwendet, näher behandelt, insbesondere der Wortwitz, die Metaphorik, die
Ironie und die Übertreibung. Wie die Nobelpreisträgerin mit ihren Worten spielt, und
die Sprachgewalt, die daraus entsteht, spielt in diesem Kapitel eine wesentliche Rolle.
Mit Hilfe solcher Techniken verhüllt sie eine unterschwellige Kritik an ihrer
Gesellschaft. Dieselbe Kritik, die sie ausübt, sei aber nicht an wahre Personen gerichtet,
sondern an die Sprache selbst. Jelinek zeigt eine tiefere Bedeutung, die sie durch Ironie
versteckt und stattdessen durch gewalthafte Metaphorik darstellt. Die unerwarteten
Zusammenhänge, die sie, besonders zwischen Liebe und Gewalt, erschafft, und welchen
Effekt dies auf den Leser hat, werden zum Thema. Diese Verknüpfungen werden vom
Leser nicht erwartet, sondern er wird befremdet, womit die Schriftstellerin dem Text
seine Vielfältigkeit verleiht. Dieses Werk wird zeigen, wie die österreichische Autorin berühmte
Redewendungen der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft in fremde Kontexte stellt, um die Leser
zu schockieren und sie zum Nachdenken anzuregen. Anhand solcher Beispiele, und der
These Bruns in „Transformationen der Gewalt“ wird also gezeigt, dass das Lesen
dieses Romans kein passiver Lesegenuss ist. In der Untergliederung des zweiten
Kapitels, „Gesellschaftskritik“, wird die Kritik an ihrer zeitgenössischen konservativen
österreichischen Gesellschaft und Ökonomie ziemlich deutlich. Außerdem zeigt sie,
dass Frauen in dieser patriarchalischen Sozialstruktur nicht denselben Wert wie Männer
haben. In diesem Abschnitt werden einige Beispiele präsentiert, die die Vorstellungen
der Bürger, die sich einen sozialen Aufstieg wünschen, wiedergeben. Nicht nur die
ehrgeizigen Wünsche werden dargestellt, sondern auch deren Folgen auf den Rest der
Figuren im Roman. Dieses Kapitel beinhaltet die verschiedenen Machtverhältnisse wie
auch die Methoden, die zu ihrer Bewahrung führen. Mit Hilfe ihrer Sprache schafft es Jelinek, eine tiefere Bedeutung zu den Aspekten der Kultur und Philosophie
darzustellen. Im dritten Teil des Abschnitts „Der Roman als (Sprach)kritik“ wird der
Kapitalismus in Zusammenhang mit der Ungleichheit zwischen Frauen und Männern
gebracht, besonders in Bezug auf den Text „Healthier Marriage“ von Linda C.
DeMeritt. Diese Autorin zeigt in ihrem Roman, wie die Figuren durch Geld eine
bessere gesellschaftliche Position erreichen wollen. Hier wird besonders darauf
hingewiesen, dass die soziale Stellung als Frau auch nicht einfach zu erreichen ist.
Dieser Teilbereich zeigt, wie der Ehrgeiz und die strenge Kontrolle der Mutter Kohut
die richtige Entfaltung der Weiblichkeit ihrer Tochter verhindern. Jelineks
Angemessenheit als poststrukturalistische Feministin und die Aspekte Sprache,
Beherrschung und Heftigkeit ihrer Werke werden anhand des Werks „Language of
Violence“
näher behandelt. Dieser Abschnitt beweist, dass sich die Gewalt in
zahlreichen Sektoren des Lebens, insbesondere in den intimen Beziehungen,
wiederfinden könnte. In dieser Arbeit wird gezeigt, wie die Schriftstellerin mit Hilfe der
Erzählform einen sprachlichen Abstand zur Protagonisten erschafft. Indem sich der
Schreibstil für die jeweiligen Figuren nicht ändert, gelingt es ihr, einen zweifellos
komplexen Stil zu erreichen.

This article aims to identify Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) in Jo who is the main character in A Taste of Honey. Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey turned into an amazing dramatic achievement when initially staged in London by Joan Littelwood's Theatre Workshop Company in 1958. It was also made into a high acclaimed film in 1961. The play is about the immature Jo and her associations with those around her - her untrustworthy and half-whore mother Helen, Helen’s spouse Peter, the black sailor who abandons her pregnant, and Geof the gay person art understudy who moves into help with the infant. It is additionally about Jo's unshakeable hopefulness all through her trials. A Taste of Honey traverses two acts containing two scenes. The entire play happens around a similar place, which is a shabby and miserable rented flat in Manchester. The main subjects of the play are pregnancy, race, premarital sexuality and loneliness.

En el 2014, Marta Sanz publicó la segunda edición de su novela autobiográfica La lección de anatomía. En esta novela, Sanz desarrolla un discurso a partir de la alternancia entre realidad/ficción, que marca su génesis en las experiencias e influencias de otras mujeres. Estas influencias femeninas, por su parte, tienen su origen en la madre. La autora construye un personaje a partir de las experiencias de otras, su subjetividad no es independiente. Entre esas experiencias ajenas sobresale la madre, y desde ella, subvierte el género autobiográfico y reivindica su derecho a contar desde su realidad y no desde la que el imaginario patriarcal le impone.
De esta manera, la narración en La lección de anatomía establece su origen en el discurso materno y la nombro “matergrafía”, según la define Vanessa Vilches Norat en sus planteamientos teóricos. A través de la relación con su madre, la narradora problematiza sus realidades, entre ellas, la maternidad. Se presenta la complejidad de las relaciones entre madres e hijas y pone de relieve el contexto histórico que vivió su madre y las condiciones materiales a las que se expuso solo por cumplir el imaginario patriarcal impuesto. Ya luego en la adultez, propone una reconciliación con el discurso materno.
Este trabajo de Sanz va de la mano con su afán de construir un discurso contrahegemónico. Desde la manera de combinar características de géneros tan diversos como la autobiografía y la novela, el escogido minucioso de figuras femeninas, la representación de sus condiciones y las violencias del patriarcado y el capital, responden a una visión transformadora de la literatura que busca no solo entretener sino también confrontar e incomodar para provocar reflexión.



In 2014, Marta Sanz published the second edition of her autobiographical novel La lección de anatomía. In this novel, Sanz develops a narrative based on the alternation between reality/fiction, which marks her genesis in the experiences and influences of other women. These feminine influences, also, have their origin in the mother. The author set up a character from the experiences of others, her subjectivity is not independent. Among those other experiences, the mother stands out, and from her, Sanz overturned the autobiographical genre and claims her right to tell her reality and not from the one that patriarchal imaginary imposes on her.
In that way, the narration in La lección de anatomía, establishes its origin in the maternal discourse, and I call it “matergrafía”, according to the definition of Vanessa Vilches Norat in her theoretical approaches. Through the relationship with her mother, the narrator questions her realities, including motherhood. The complexity of relationships between mothers and daughters is conferred and it highlights the historical context that her mother lived and the material conditions which she accepted only to fulfilling the impositions of the patriarchy. Already later in adulthood, she proposes a reconciliation with the maternal discourse.
This work by Sanz is part of her desire to build a “discurso contrahegemónico”. From the way of combining characteristics of genres as diverse as the autobiography and the novel, the careful selection of female figures, the representation of their conditions and the violence of the patriarchy and capitalism, responds to a transformative vision of literature that seeks no only entertain but also confront and discomfort to provoke reflection.

As its own micro institution, the family provides the day-to-day context in which roles and relationships are repeatedly (re)established, reinforced, and (re)negotiated. Consequently, parent-child interaction becomes a fertile site for exploring moments of conflict and resistance, as well as nurture and comfort. In no other parent-child- configuration are such moments prominently displayed as in the interaction between mothers and daughters – deemed one of the most conflictive, complex, and connective familial relationships. Despite ample interdisciplinary research on the maternal figure and the mother-daughter relationship, there is a paucity of studies analyzing the discourse of mothers and adolescent daughters in everyday interaction. Given also the highly scrutinized images of the maternal figure, a discourse analytic study provides another lens through which to view and understand this dynamic figure.
    The current study aims to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on the mother- daughter relationship, in general, and on the maternal figure, specifically, by examining (1) how various maternal roles emerge and shift in the daily interaction of one mother and her adolescent daughter; (2) what discursive strategies the mother employs when in these roles; and (3) how the mother’s roles and discourse strategies affect the interactional outcome with the adolescent daughter.
    Using videotaped and transcribed interactions between a mother and her 15 year old daughter in their family home over a two week period, the data were analyzed primarily from an interactional sociolinguistic perspective, using conversation analytic techniques as a tool for transcription and discursive analysis.
    Findings revealed that when the mother’s talk indexes the role of nurturer, interaction with the adolescent daughter is less contentious. Mother as Nurturer has positive interactional outcomes for the mother-daughter pair, despite the discursive strategies she employs when in this role. When the mother steps out of this role, and becomes the target of blame, partakes in martyrdom, engages in troubles telling or is being critical, the interactional outcome is disharmonious to varying degrees. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on the maternal figure. They also reveal the roles and interactional cues that bring about harmonious and disharmonious outcomes within the mother-daughter relationship.

© Copyright Domenica Luvera DelPrete 2015 All Rights Reserved

Eric Berne is one of the psychoanalysts who wrote about the of the Woman fantasies populating the men's unconscious, that set off the path of the sexual life of their daughters. The article visits Berne's ideas, briefly and concretely, with an invitation for future parents to personal analysis for avoiding further transmittal of contradictory unconscious imagoes upon younger generations.

The objective of this study is to explore the lived experience of perimenopausal mothers raising adolescents and discover the challenges faced in this phenomenon as experienced by the participants. Colaizzi’s phenomenological approach to phenomenological inquiry was utilized in analyzing the data gathered from this research. The participants of the study are married mothers experiencing perimenopause symptoms, aged 40-55 years old. After significant statements were extracted from the transcripts of the response and the scrutiny of the formulated meanings, there emerged five themes. The five clustered themes that emerged were: Perception on Perimenopause with two subthemes, Perimenopause: A Sign of Aging, Perimenopause: A Frightening Stage; The Rocky and Rough Road Experiences, with two subthemes Emotional and Physical Experiences, Finance and Career Difficulties; Perimenopause and Motherhood, with three subthemes, Not a Problem in Maintaining the Relationship with Adolescents, Challenge to Relationships, Sacrifices of a Mother; Mother and Teenager, with one subtheme Causes of Conflicts with Adolescents; and Handling Herself: During Perimenopause. It is quite plausible that the experiences and symptoms of the perimenopausal mothers in Talibon have commonality but the intensity of the symptoms felt by perimenopausal women differs from one woman to another. The relationship of the perimenopausal women to their adolescents is influenced by their family background and family awareness of the situation. This study guides not just the mothers, but also the families of women who experience perimenopause.

As the world’s most rapidly ageing society in which fewer and fewer women are choosing to become mothers, Japan has seen many new types of literary texts that deal with old age. This paper focuses on two examples of innovative representations of problematic relationships between an ageing mother and her daughter.  Shōno Yoriko’s Haha no hattatsu (The Development of the Mother, 1996) is a post-modern feminist novel with radical narrative experimentation whereas Sano Yōko’s Shizuko-san (2008) is a collection of essays on her relationship with her eponymous mother. Each text deals with a tyrannical and abusive mother.  In Shōno’s novel the monstrous mother is de-constructed and transformed into numerous mothers through constant wordplay. However, in this “hilarious mother-horror novel” (blurbs of the paperback edition) the mother is ultimately indestructible; she continues to develop and multiply within the fifty-three year-old single unmarried daughter.  Although Sano’s text is not as radical as Shōno’s in form and style, the mother-daughter conflict in Shizuko-san is just as fierce and the challenge against motherhood myths is just as daring.  Here the mother’s senile dementia makes communication and reconciliation between mother and daughter possible for the first time.

Background: Parent-adolescent reproductive health (RH) communication is one of the potential sources of information for adolescents on the topic. Given that female adolescents in Bangladesh are faced with increasing RH-related risks, it is important to understand how parents communicate about RH to their adolescents from the adolescents' perspectives. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the status of mother-adolescent daughter communication on reproductive health in Bangladesh. Methods: A cross-sectional study targeting female students was conducted in five high schools in Chittagong based on a self-administered questionnaire survey. A description method was used to describe the characteristics of mother-adolescent daughters' communication on RH including the frequency, type and the quantity of topics. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to explore the factors influencing mother-adolescent daughter communication.

The article presents a case study of dietary recommendations given in the book "100 minutes for beauty" by Polish author Zofia Wędrowska - an influential text, which helped shape the notion of femininity as well as everyday beauty rituals in late Soviet culture. Discussing the values and symbolic structures embedded in the dietary regime and explanations accompanying it, the article attempts to answer the question: what could make dieting in general and Wędrowska’s approach in particular appealing to Soviet women, and at the same time what constituted its relevance from the point of view of the official Soviet ideology? I argue that "100 minutes for beauty" exemplifies subtler instruments of control characterizing societies of late modernity, and highlights the key role of women as subjects and mediators of this control.

Celem artykułu jest ukazanie, w jaki sposób relacje matka–córka oraz praktyki artystyczne wpisują się w pole autobiograficzne i są zależne od mechanizmów w nim funkcjonujących. Autorka wprowadza kategorię pola autobiograficznego, by unaocznić „strukturę relacji” pomiędzy osobami, praktykami i przedmiotami, odpowiadającymi konkretnym obszarom aktywności, nie tylko społeczno-politycznych, lecz także pisarsko-artystycznych. Dla jej sformułowania odwołuje się do badań nad estetyką i performatywnością autobiograficznego pisarstwa oraz po części teorii Pierre’a Bourdieu. Praktyki artystyczne w polu autobiograficznym zostały zbadane na przykładzie wybranej twórczości Ewy Kuryluk i Zuzanny Janin w kontekście artystycznych dokonań ich matek – Marii Kuryluk (Miriam Kohany) i Marii Anto.

Articolo divulgativo sul ruolo giocato dalla famiglia nella carriera sportiva delle calciatrici della Nazionale italiana di calcio femminile, impegnata ai Mondiali femminili di Francia 2019. Attraverso lo spoglio di interviste scritte (prese essenzialmente da "Quelle che ... il calcio", 2019) e video trasmesse via social durante i Mondiali, l'articolo analizza quanto le figure dei padri e (in misura minore, a causa dei pregiudizi) delle madri ha aiutato la carriera delle calciatrici italiane. Viene dato spazio anche a temi minori riguardanti il calcio femminile attuale, quali le strategie usate dalle allora bambine, inserite in squadre maschili, per combattere il bullismo sessista dei compagni, o la diffusione del calcio femminile in piccoli centri dell'Italia.

In her set of interpretive essays on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Foley famously analyzed what she termed “the mother/daughter romance,” suggesting that “for ancient women, Demeter and Persephone may have represented the extraordinary endurance of the bond between women of different generations in the same family.” By contrast, Clay insists in her chapter on the hymn that “while the hymn-poet is by no means unaware of the psychological and sexual implications of his narrative, his attention remains fixed on the larger political and theological ramifications of his story.” Clay and Foley each bring out different points of emphasis in Demeter’s well-known hymn, but I believe there is a way to read these various elements as complementary to one another. In this paper, I argue that the hymnic poet places the bereaved mother’s intensely personal and even guilty anguish on an equal plane with the combined grief and anger of a Homeric hero derived of personal τιμή. With the rape of Persephone cruelly framed as a breach of the maternal protective-instinct—which is central to Demeter’s τιμή as the goddess of nurturing and fertility—Demeter’s subsequent grief and rage are brought into parallel with those of the tragically ironic mother-figure, Achilles himself.
Too often overlooked by those wishing to focus on the more “political” elements of the hymn, Demeter’s early period of mourning for her lost daughter shares numerous parallels with that of Achilles for Patroclus. Both Achilles’ grieving process, however, and his correspondence to the bereaved, anti-mother Niobe draw attention to his undeniable guilt in the death of his beloved. Demeter, on the other hand, can take no rational responsibility for the rape of her daughter. Rather, the hymnic poet parallels her mourning process to that of the shamed and guilty Achilles in order not only to place her personal grief on a level with that of the archetypal Homeric hero, but even more so to bring out her inviolable dedication to her maternal duty. In the mind of the hymnic poet, Demeter is such a paragon of Homeric motherhood that her sense of personal responsibility for the well-being of her child leads her to grieve in the very same manner as the pitiably failed mother-figures, Achilles and Niobe.
Throughout the body of her hymn, Demeter is consumed with the desire either to restore her personal τιμή as the goddess of nurturing and fertility or at least to avenge its deprivation. Her final success depends upon her effective manipulation of the aspect of her nurturing τιμή which has not been stolen from her—her patronage of human agriculture. By withholding her maternal care from the fields of men and threatening her fellow gods with a loss of all γέρα and θυσίαι, Demeter finally reasserts her own power as a maternal nurturing figure—a force absolutely necessary for the maintenance of Zeus’ cherished cosmic order. Nickel summarizes, “Her position in the Olympian community is thereby confirmed and even augmented. No longer having any reason to be angry, Demeter returns with her daughter to Olympus.”
As numerous scholars have pointed out, Demeter and Persephone act as mirror images for one another throughout the body of the hymn. Thus, with Zeus’ final redistribution of τιμαί at the hymn’s close, Persephone actually becomes an extension of her mother’s power into the realm of Hades. As mother and daughter return physically to Olympus, the primal maternal force which they together embody is stretched out over all three realms of the cosmos—Hades, earth, and Olympus. Paradoxically, the temporary break in the mother-daughter relationship of protection and care serves finally to extend and augment the power of that relationship and to reestablish its central importance for the solidarity of Zeus’ cosmos.

"Der Autor untersucht die Frage, wie mündliche biographische Erzählungen in gesellschaftliche Generationendiskurse eingebettet sind. Um dies zu beantworten, werden im Beitrag anhand von Einzelinterviews die Strukturen von Biographien im Hinblick auf die narrative Verarbeitung von Erfahrungsbrüchen, aber auch als Prozess der Aneignung von gesellschaftlichen Diskursen und Erzählungen perspektiviert. Anhand der Analyse von lebensgeschichtlichen Erzählungen einer 68erin, ihrer Mutter und ihrer Tochter werden - nach Einbrüchen in deren Lebensgeschichte - unterschiedliche sprachliche Formen der Re-Konfiguration ihrer biographischen Figuren herausgearbeitet. Diese Formen sind, so der Autor, in Prozessen der sprachlichen Aneignung von öffentlichen und familiären Diskursen in der Jugendphase begründet, die sich verfestigende, sprachliche Muster der Welterschließung hervorbringen. Im Beitrag wird gezeigt, dass diese 'generationalen Gattungsmuster' in den drei Erzählungen die Grenzen zwischen weitgehend inkommensurablen Erfahrungs- und Erzählräumen innerhalb der Familie markieren. Die generationalen Gattungen präfigurieren dabei nicht nur gegenüber den Erzählungen der anderen Familienmitglieder widerständige Sprachbilder, sondern auch gebrochene Formen der Einbettung in die 'Großen gesellschaftlichen (Generationen-)Erzählungen'."

The theory of the ethical encounter with alterity that the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas developed since the sixties has been globally acclaimed and it continues to be discussed and studied in manifold areas of knowledge. As other critics such as Edith Wyschogrod (2002) or Scott Davidson (2012) have demonstrated, the notion of translation is central in Levinas’s work. In this paper, by relying on Zygmunt Bauman’s “cross-cultural translation” (1999), I contend that the ethical encounter with the other can be understood as an act of translation in itself, which at the same time is constantly translated into fiction through the publication of contemporary works that reflect on these moral issues. My aim is to show that the proliferation of fictional works that explore the ethical encounter with alterity contributes to society’s reflection on responsibility and care towards the other. In order to develop this point, I will explore Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk (2016) as an example of a contemporary text in which the ethical encounter with alterity can be portrayed as an act of translation that opens the door to the materialisation of ethical quests in contemporary societies.

Au travers de cet ouvrage, écrit suite au décès brutal de sa maman, Jacinthe Mazzocchetti invite à penser le deuil, la mort, l’amour, la vie. Entre bribes de biographie, poésies et récits, sous la forme d’une correspondance, se déposent les tendresses et les brèches d’une relation mère-fille, les douleurs et les espoirs, le sens de la vie, mais aussi des mots, de l’acte d’écriture.

In this article I argue that an account of non matricidal relations between mothers and daughters should include an account of the transformative process through which mothers and daughters can overcome the damage of phallocentrism. I further argue that as a lived experience, mother-daughter relations are always actualized in relations with a normative background, authoritative discursive practices, and social institutions, all of which constitute motherhood in different contexts. Transforming this space means challenging these contents and practices. Thus, it follows that creating non matricidal relations includes an aspect of witnessing in which the mother addresses to the daughter her refusal of phallocentric practices and values. By becoming the addressee of the mother’s subjectivity, as expressed in her ethico-political refusal, the daughter constitutes relations of difference. Reading the biblical story of Lot’s wife and her daughters, I suggest that the act of witnessing the violence of divine law has constituted a space between Lot’s wife and her daughters wherein they could create a lineage based on resistance to phallocentric law and affirmation of an alternative ethics.

Książka analizuje związek matki i córki w wymiarze psychologicznym, socjologicznym i kulturowym. To relacja, która wciąż czeka
na pogłębioną analizę, na zbudowanie wokół niej mitologii
i kulturotwórczych toposów (Rich 2000). Współcześnie
pojawia się ona w kulturze głównie w postaci uproszczonych,
czarno-białych wizerunków „dobrych” i „złych” córek albo
matek, dodatkowo banalizowanych w mass mediach. Tak jak inne związki między kobietami: kobieca przyjaźń, siostrzeństwo
czy miłość, relacja matek i dorosłych córek do niedawna
pozostawała na marginesie, wydawała się czymś oczywistym,
czego nie trzeba analizować ani wyjaśniać, co w żaden zasadniczy
sposób nie buduje naszego rozumienia świata i ludzi
w tymże świecie. Relacja między matką a córką
po raz pierwszy stała się obiektem odrębnej analizy dopiero w latach sześćdziesiątych i siedemdziesiątych XX wieku, zaś
autorkami prac były w tym okresie głównie francusko- i anglojęzyczne
badaczki feministyczne. Temat ten poruszały nie
tylko pisarki i poetki, ale też badaczki zajmujące się krytyką
literacką, psychologią czy historią. Zaczęły analizować bycie
matką i córką nie jako stany naturalne dla kobiet, ale jako instytucje
i role społeczne, uwzględniając fakt, że relacja ta „jest
ulokowana w kulturze w najbardziej fundamentalny sposób,
w miejscu, gdzie kwestie płci kulturowej, generacji i formy
opowiadania o tych relacjach (gender, generation, genre) łączą
się ze sobą i przecinają”1 (Walters 1992: 229). Moja książka jest
kontynuacją poszukiwań zainicjowanych w tym nurcie, skupia
się bowiem na trzech głównych wątkach: modelach relacji
matka – córka, jakie wyłaniają się z dotychczasowych badań
i teorii głównie w obszarze nauk społecznych, doświadczeniach
samych matek i córek i wreszcie wizerunkach tej relacji
w polskich mediach, sztuce i literaturze.
Pierwsza część książki poświęcona jest omówieniu założeń
teoretycznych, do których się odwołuję. Opisuję w niej paradygmat
konstrukcjonizmu społecznego i specyfikę perspektywy
badań nad płcią kulturową w naukach społecznych oraz
przedstawiam moje rozumienie pojęć takich jak macierzyństwo
i córectwo, odwołując się do definicji zaproponowanych
przez Maggie Humm (1993) oraz, na polskim gruncie, przez
Joannę Ostrouch (2004) i Bogusławę Budrowską (2000). Omawiam
najważniejsze teorie dotyczące relacji matka – córka oraz wybrane wyniki badań, starając się jednocześnie krytycznie
podejść do dyskursów konstruujących tę relację nie tylko
w polskim kontekście kulturowym. Ponieważ w swoich rozważaniach
odwołuję się do pojęcia kobiecej tożsamości, w tym
miejscu wyjaśniam też, jak rozumiem to pojęcie w kontekście
relacyjnym i międzypokoleniowym, powołując się na model
tożsamości jako relacji, który zaproponowali Kenneth i Mary
Gergenowie (1993).
Druga część książki poświęcona jest temu, w jaki sposób
same kobiety – matki i dorosłe córki – postrzegają swoje role
i jak przeżywają relację. Opisuję tu krótko przebieg samego
badania oraz to, w jaki sposób doszłam do przedstawionych
wniosków, ale przede wszystkim prezentuję wyniki analizy
wywiadów pogłębionych z udziałem kobiet mieszkających
w Warszawie i okolicach. Celem było uchwycenie i opisanie
procesu negocjowania relacji matka – córka we współczesnej
Polsce, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem kwestii takich jak:
• definicja/rozumienie roli matki/córki,
• charakterystyka kontaktów z matką, zarówno w pokoleniu
matek, jak i córek, oraz z córką (w przypadku matek),
• relacje z córką w perspektywie kobiet – ciągłość, zmiany,
perspektywy,
• postrzeganie/doświadczanie kobiecości i jej przemian.
W trzeciej części książki prezentuję analizę specyficznego
języka reprezentacji, za pomocą którego w polskiej kulturze
po 1989 roku konstruowane są modele relacji matka – córka.