the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

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mllk from her body leave Martha dlsquleted In Shikasta,
Lesslng's stance 1s more posltive as she stresses the vltal
role of parental affectron In brlnglng up chlldren
1.6.0. The Amerlcan poet Emlly Dlckinson's poetry reveals
a mocklng and even contemptuous tone of the daughter towards
her mother The pallties that her mother embodles are the
Chrlstlan vlrtues of meekness, patlence and submlsslon, and
these attributes, Dlcklnson feels, deserve only contempt
She extends her relectlon of her mother and the maternal
world to any convention whlch she, as a woman, 1s expected
to submit to courtship, marriage, chrldren
1.6.1. In the novels of Ellen Glasgow, the mother exlsts
only as a shadow cast over her daughter's promlse In Edrth
Wharton's novels, the stralned relat~onshlp between mochers
and daughters 1s one of the persistent themes Kllla
Cather, Colette and Vzrglnla Woolf, as Jane Lllienfeld
lndlcatea !Davldson and Broner 1980 150-751, were born Into
fam~lles of strong women Unllke nineteenth cenzury
mothers, the mothers of these early twentieth cenzury
wrlters were neither obsessive nor felt a need to dom-nate
thelr daughter's llves Not surprlslngly, all three wrlrers
wrote about strong women, and also malntalned close
relationships with women