The Mother/Daughter Relationship in Toni Morrison's Sula and Amy Tan's

The Mother/Daughter Relationship in
Toni Morrison’s Sula and Amy Tan’s

The Joy Luck Club
Marleen du Pree, 0211109

Master Thesis
Engels: Educatie & Communicatie
Supervisor: Roselinde Supheert
Second Reader: Nicole Reith
July 2006
17,292 words
Master Thesis - Marleen du Pree, 0211109 i
Preface
I would like to extend my gratitude to the following people: Derek Rubin and Nicole
Reith, for the introduction into African-American and other ethnic minority literature
and for helping me narrowing down my topic; Roselinde Supheert, for her time,
accuracy, encouragement, and kindness; my parents and brothers, for their never-
ending support, and the possibility to go to university; my boyfriend, for helping me
decipher the mysterious and frustrating world of Microsoft Word and his patience and
motivational words; and to the many people who listened to me and put up with me
during these last few months.
Thank you,
Marleen du Pree
July 2006
Master Thesis - Marleen du Pree, 0211109 ii
Table of Contents
Preface...........................................................................................................i
Table of Contents..........................................................................................ii
Introduction..................................................................................................1
Chapter 1 - Feminist Psychoanalytical Framework........................................4
1.1 - The Mother/Daughter and Mother/Son Relationship...................................................6
1.2 - Race and Class in Psychoanalysis.....................................................................................10
Chapter 2: The Mother/Daughter Relationship in Toni Morrison’s Sula.......13
2.1 - Outline of Sula..........................................................................................................................14
2.2 - Eva and Hannah Peace..........................................................................................................14
2.3 - Sula and Hannah Peace.........................................................................................................16
2.4 - The Wrights: Helene and Nel..............................................................................................18
2.5 - Nel Wright and Sula Peace...................................................................................................20
2.6 - Sula’s Men...................................................................................................................................21
2.7 - Discussion and Conclusion...................................................................................................22
Chapter 3: Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.....................................................24
3.1 - Outline of the JLC....................................................................................................................25
3.2 - Jing-mei and Joy Luck............................................................................................................26
3.3 - The Mothers: Stories of the Past.......................................................................................27
3.4 - The Daughters: Their Childhood........................................................................................29
3.5 - The Daughters: Adult Life....................................................................................................31
3.6 - Mother and Daughter Connection.....................................................................................33
Chapter 4 - Discussion................................................................................35
Works Cited.................................................................................................42
Master Thesis - Marleen du Pree, 0211109 1
“… [Helen] rose grandly to the occasion of motherhood – grateful, deep down

in her heart, that the child had not inherited the great beauty that was hers:
that her skin had dusk in it, that her lashes were substantial but not
undignified in their length, that she had taken the broad flat nose of Wiley
(although Helene expected to improve it somewhat) and his generous lips.
Under Helen’s hand the little girl became obedient and polite. Any
enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by the mother until she drove
her daughter’s imagination underground…” (Toni Morrison – Sula – 18)
“…She can see all of this. And it annoys me that all she sees are the bad
parts. But then I look around and everything she’s said is true. And this
convinces me she can see what else is going on, between Harold and me. She
knows what’s going to happen to us. Because I remember something else she
saw when I was eight years old. My mother had looked in my rice bowl and
told me I would marry a bad man…” (Amy Tan – The Joy Luck Club – 164)
Introduction
During the last few decades of the 20th century, minority literature took an uprise in
the world of mainstream fiction in the United States. Many writers originating from a
diversity of ethnic minorities have been sharing their thoughts, culture and
background with the general public. The changing ethnic atmosphere in the United
States, which meant more acceptance and integration of minority writers into
mainstream fiction, created the possibility for these fiction writers to be accepted and
integrated in the bookshelves during the last decades. Just like in mainstream
literary fiction, the revival of minority literature contained a strong female
component. Female writers such as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong
Kinston, and Amy Tan use fiction to express their connection to their culture and
history and show a female perspective of the world. Moreover, another important
common aspect of their fiction is their strong interest in the world of their mothers
and grandmothers and how they are connected and influenced by that world.
In 60s and 70s, when the ethnic and female literature increased in popularity,
another branch of sciences became more and more interested in the female
perspective of the world. A new psychology of women emerged in the work of Nancy
Chodorow and Carol Gilligan, to name a few. In this field of research the experiences
and the views of women are the centre of investigation, as a counter-balance to the
men-centred perspective from which research was mainly orientated before. One of
the largest topics of interest in women psychology is the female identity
development and the relationship between mothers and daughters. In The
Reproduction of Mothering (1978), Nancy Chodorow provides a psychological
analysis of the female identity derived from the Freudian Oedipus model, although
she predominantly relies on object-relations psychology, which is based on the

assumption that every individual’s psychological life is created in and through
personal relationships with others. Chodorow claims that female identity is primarily
based on the connection and closeness to the mother and the placement of women
in culture is defined by the bonding between mother and daughter (100). This notion
will be discussed in chapter 1 below. With the emergence of female literature as well
as female psychological theories, a whole new field developed. Not only is feminist
psychoanalysis used for creating an understanding of the world in general, but it is
also used as a framework from which reflections of the world could be analysed, such
as literary fiction. Theorists like Marianne Hirsch used the work of Chodorow and
Gilligan as a means to analyse female fiction.
Although there are many novels by female writers which could be analysed
from a psychoanalytical or feminist angle, two novels have been selected for this
study. These novels are Sula (1973) by the African-American writer Toni Morrison
and The Joy Luck Club (1989) by the Chinese-American Amy Tan. Both writers have
the gift to describe the relationship between mothers and daughters in a vivid way.
Furthermore, they both indicate the influence of factors such as race and class on the
mother/daughter relationship. Both novels contain a story about young females who
are growing into adulthood and are in search of their own self and identity. Both
stories are written from a female perspective and describe the profound influence of
the mothers on the lives of the daughters, even when the daughters explicitly refuse
to live accordingly the life style of their mothers. Although the novels have many
similarities, there are also many significant differences to be found between them,
especially with respect to ethnicity. In both novels, the mother/daughter relationship
is influenced by social and cultural backgrounds, albeit in different ways. This
influences the development of identity and self-determination of the protagonists.
Toni Morrison’s Sula tells the story of a black community in the fictional town
Medallion, Ohio, where two girls grow up together and are formed by the influence
of race, gender and society. The female relationships and especially the mother-
daughter relationship prove to be highly important for the identity development of
the female characters in the novel. The women are faced with severe consequences
due to racism. The double marginality the characters encounter influences the
mother-daughter relationship and subsequently their identity development.
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club contains the story of four Chinese mothers and
their second generation immigrant American daughters. Alternately, Amy Tan gives
voice to either a daughter of a mother and her clear description of the mothers’ and
daughters’ perspectives provides the opportunity to put the pieces of the puzzle
together. The reader realises that their relationship is influenced by a generation gap
which is not merely created because of age differences but also because of cultural
differences. The position of women in the Chinese culture influences the perception
of female identity by the mothers and this clashes with the view of the daughters,
who have been raised in a double culture.
In the first part of this study, a theoretical framework will be provided, based
on the work of psychoanalysts such as Nancy Chodorow. The theory of her book The
Reproduction of Mothering has been the starting point for many researchers in the
field of feminism and in this study it will function as that as well. Chodorow’s theory
will be discussed in the light of mother-daughter relationships and the theoretical
framework will be completed by criticisms and revisions made by other analysts in
later studies, such as the literary analyst Marianne Hirsch. After establishing a
suitable framework, Toni Morrison’s Sula and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club will be
discussed with reference to the identity development of the female characters and
the influence of the maternal lineage. Lastly, the novels will be compared and
contrasted in a concluding discussion. The analyses based on Chodorow’s model on
the relationship between mothers and daughters show that the mother-daughter
relationship is the most important influence on the identity development of the
female characters, despite the negative cultural and racial implications on that
relationship in Toni Morrison’s Sula and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.
Chapter 1 - Feminist Psychoanalytical Framework
In this chapter, a psychoanalytical framework will be established with respect to the

influences of feminist theorists Nancy Chodorow and Marianne Hirsch. The first part
will indicate the position of Chodorow and Hirsch in the general field of feminist
psychoanalysis and specify the general ideas of their theories. Second, both theories
will be discussed with reference to the differences between the mother/daughter
relationship and the mother/son relationship. Furthermore, the use of psychoanalysis
for the analysis of literary fiction will be discussed. Third, the implications of societal
factors, such as race and class, on the interpretation of psychoanalytical theories,
will be discussed with respect to Chodorow and Hirsch.
Around the 1970s, a fundamental change went through the conventional
fields of literary fiction and science. During the same period both the literary field as
well as the field of psychoanalytical thought changed. Besides an uprise of minority
and female fiction, the field of psychoanalytic thought received essential criticism
from the corner of feminist writing and thinking. The patriarchal based
psychoanalytic theories, created by humanists Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan,
were considered to be suppressing and degrading the position of women in society
and culture in general. Therefore, theorists, like Juliet Mitchell in her Psychoanalysis
and Feminism (1974), presented a mind frame based on Freudian and Lacanian
thoughts, which regarded the positioning of women in society from a different point
of view. This new feminist psychoanalysis did not place women in an oppressed
position, but claimed that certain areas of a culture could be considered specifically
gendered and therefore, valuable for the functioning of society as a whole (Hirsch
131). In this view, women are not oppressed, but valued for their participation in
society in general.
A different approach was taken by Nancy Chodorow, an American feminist
sociologist, who provided a framework for understanding gender by focusing on the
mother-daughter relationship from an object-relation perspective in her book The
Reproduction of Mothering (1978). Unlike the views of Mitchell and other theorists,
like Nancy Friday and Marie Cardinal, 1 Chodorow argues that female identity is
characterised by closeness and connection to the mother, and not by distance from
the mother or mother-hate (Hirsch 132). Although both Mitchell’s and Chodorow’s
1
See Nancy Friday, My Mother/My Self: A Daughter’s Search for Identity. New York: Delacorte Press,
1977 and Mary Cardinal, The Words to Say It. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1975.
texts discuss very different views on psychoanalytic feminism, they both have had an
immense influence on the broad range of future work (Barrett 455).
In her article “Psychoanalysis and Feminism” (1992), Michele Barrett states
that in the fields of feminism and feminist psychoanalysts “there is far more interest
in literature and culture than in society and politics” (456). Soon after the work by
Chodorow and Mitchell, psychoanalysis was not merely used to provide a feminine
perspective of the world, but it was also used in other areas of science. According to
Barrett, psychoanalysis became an interpretive framework for analyzing and
criticizing fiction and film, and it is also much used in the field of cultural studies
(459).
A female theorist, who has used psychoanalysis for criticizing and analyzing
literary fiction is Marianne Hirsch in her book The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative,
Psychoanalysis, Feminism (1989). In the introduction, Hirsch states that she does
not consider theoretical texts to be universally true, but that she will view them as
theoretical fictions alongside literary fictions (Hirsch 11). This indicates that in her
notion one fictional text can provide a framework for understanding another and it
could, therefore, be seen as a interpretation of reality, instead of the interpretation.
Furthermore, for analyzing narrative, she relies on the essence of certain
psychoanalytical definitions, which are reshaped for a broader application. An
example of this is “the family romance.” In the original Freudian plot, the family
romance stands for the imaginary replacement of the parent with another authority
figure. Hirsch has applied the family romance to a wider context: “the family
romance is the story we tell ourselves about the social and psychological reality of
the family in which we find ourselves and about the patterns of desire that motivate
the interaction among its members” (9). Not only does the parent-child relationship
influence this romance, but society also plays an important in this imaginary story.
The influence of society on the mother/daughter relationship will be discussed in
section 1.1 below.
Besides relying on many other theorists, Hirsch also relies on the analytical
framework provided by Chodorow. In traditional psychoanalytical theory the
mother/daughter relationship is mainly discussed from the position of the daughter.
By doing this, the daughter is always seen as the subject of the analysis, and the
story is told from her perspective, whereas the mother is considered the object and
is merely analysed through the eyes of the daughter. The mother’s subject
perspective is never displayed in relation to her daughter; the mother’s point of view
is only discussed when she is seeing herself as a daughter in relation to her own
mother. Then also, the mother-figure is still discussed from an object perspective.
Over the years, there has been debate on how to display the perspectives of both
mothers and daughters. Whereas Chodorow’s theory seems to be primarily based on
an object perspective of the mother in which the voice of the daughter seems most
important, Hirsch’s stresses the importance of looking for the mother’s subject
representation in literary fiction in order to complete the view on the relationship
between mother and daughter (Hirsch 163).
In the following section a critical review will be given of Chodorow’s and
Hirsch’s theories as expressed in the books mentioned above. Furthermore, using
psychoanalytical thought in the analysis of literary fiction will be addressed, as well
as certain (inter-)cultural complications it entails.
1.1 - The Mother/Daughter and Mother/Son Relationship
A mother’s relationship to her son is evidently different from her relationship with
her daughter and the underlying explanation has been the topic of debate in many
discussions. In her book The Reproduction of Mothering, Nancy Chodorow asks why
it is that mainly mothers mother and why fathers do not or, at least, much less.
Moreover, she explains how the mother/child relationship influences the identity
development of both boys and girls. The answer to this question lies in the
assumption that there are systematic biological differences between boys and girls.
Chodorow bases her notions on an object-relations theory, which starts from the
assumption that every individual’s psychological life is created in and through
personal relationships with others. She starts her book by explaining the process of
being mothered, which is significantly different for boys and girls. Although initially
they are both emotionally attached to their mother, this changes when the children
enter their pre-school phase. Around that period of their lives, boys start to identify
with their fathers, and girls continue to identify with their mothers. The identification
with the father results in the denial of the boys’ attachment to the mother, whereas
the girls will maintain their attachment to her, because of the mother’s role model
position. The different attachment to father and mother is a result of the fact that
fathers are often more occupied outside the home than mothers are. Another
determining factor for the differences between boys and girls is the importance of
the interpersonal relationships for boys. These interactions with other men and boys
make the boys socially differently orientated than girls. Boys learn about masculinity
through their father and, more importantly, by the culture and society around them,
whereas girls form their identity through the relationship and identification with their
mother. Consequently, the relationship between mothers and daughters will
automatically be more intense and personal than the relationship between father and
son. The result of the more impersonal connection to the mother is that boys will
become less attached to family relations than girls, and will therefore be more
outwardly orientated. Girls will be more inwardly orientated in family relations,
because they are connected to the mother, who is considered the core of family life.
The intense and personal relationship between mother and daughter will prepare
girls to mother for themselves. In contrast, boys do not experience the same
personal involvement, either with their father or their mother, and will thereby be
prepared to become a father figure themselves, who can distance himself from the
family life in order to create a way to provide for the family. The different roles men
and women are expected to play are illustrated in Chodorow’s words: “Women in our
society are primarily defined as wives and mothers, thus in particularistic relation to
someone else, whereas men are defined primarily in universalistic occupational
terms” (178). In connection to this, Chodorow says that the most significant
difference between males and females is to what extent they see themselves in
connection and relation to others: “The basic feminine sense of self is connected to
the world; the basic masculine sense of self is separate” (169).
For both the identity development of girls and boys, the mother plays a
significant role. However, the mother is responsible for the way her children grow up
and how they participate in the mothering process:
An account of the early mother-infant relationship in contemporary Western
society reveals the overwhelming importance of the mother in everyone’s
psychological development, in their sense of self, and in their basic relational
stance. It reveals that becoming a person is the same as becoming a person
in relationship and in social context. (76)
Besides the personal relationship between mother and child, the social context into
which children are taken care of by their mother is highly important as well:
“Women’s mothering does not exist in isolation” (32). Girls do not only learn how to
be a mother merely through gender roles; it is mediated through their own mothers.
Furthermore, the mothering aspect of women is “informed by her relationship to her
husband, her experience of financial dependence, her expectations of marital
inequality, and her expectations about gender roles” (86). Chodorow suggests that,
in essence, the majority of societies are constructed on the notion that women are
primarily part of a private, domestic world, whereas men are part of a public, social
world (174). However, she does acknowledge that “[w]omen’s mothering is not an
unchanging transcultural universal” (32). This indicates that when the social
construct of the society in general changes, the responsibilities of mothers preparing
their children change as well. The mother’s expectations about gender roles will be
passed on to her children through the social context in which the mothering occurs:
“[T]he kind of development they unconsciously and consciously encourage in their
children will depend on the particular requirements of the world in which they live
and for which they must prepare the children” (Spelman 87).2 One of these
requirements could be the influence of variables such as race and class on the
construct of society, and the influences these variables could have on the mothering
process. This notion will be discussed in section 1.2 below.
As shown above, the role of the mother in the development of the children is
highly important. Another notion which Chodorow stresses is the importance of the
mother-child relationship for the mother herself. Where in earlier feminine thought
the attachment to a male figure was highly important and imperative, in the 1970s
the role of men in the family structure was downplayed, since the relationship of a
child to the mother was considered to be the most emotionally forming and
important one (Hirsch 133). The emphasis on the mother/daughter relationship and
on the importance of female relationships in general only leaves a secondary role for
men. Marianne Hirsch, a theorist who relies, among others, on Chodorow’s theory for
analysing literary fiction, claims that in Chodorow’s analysis the father’s presence
could at best provide an alternative for the mother’s. Hirsch continues by stating that
the adult female/male relationship is “so fundamentally unsatisfying that it insures
what [Chodorow] has called the ‘reproduction of mothering’. Unable to relive with
her husband the primal symbiotic connection she shared with her mother in infancy,
the adult women needs a child with whom she might relive that bond as a mother”
(Hirsch 133). The mother needs the relationship with her child to relive the
relationship she experienced with her mother, and the possible lack thereof.
Unlike the daughter-based theory of Chodorow, Hirsch tries to establish a
framework in which the motherly female aspect is analysed more profoundly. In The
2
It should be noted here that Chodorow’s theory is written in 1978 and could be considered outdated in
the modern view of society. Obviously, the views on the position of mothering in society have changed
and are still changing, but in the light of this study the current views will not be thoroughly discussed. The
novels by Toni Morrison and Amy Tan, which will be analysed and discussed in the following chapters
according to Chodorow’s and Hirsh’s theories, are set in the same period the theories were created or
slightly before that time. This justifies the use of these theories for analyzing the novels.
Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism (1989), she discusses

many novels in the light of mother/daughter relations. Despite the fact that
Chodorow provides a purely theoretical framework of psychoanalysis, Hirsch
interprets these theories and analyses feminist discourse novels. In her book, she
discusses novels from the 19th century, such as Jane Austen and the Brontës, after
which she works her way through modernism and postmodernism, and ends with the
work of black writers, such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.
In general, Hirsch criticizes feminist psychoanalysts for speaking too much
from the subject position of the daughter, placing the mother in an object position:
“Feminist writing and scholarship, continuing in large part to adopt daughterly
perspectives, can be said to collude with patriarchy in placing mothers into the
position of object – thereby keeping mothering outside of representation and
maternal discourse a theoretical impossibility” (163). Hirsch continues by stating
that the fine line between what is called “feminist discourse” and “maternal
discourse” should be more clearly defined. This clear distinction should be made in
order to “envision a feminist family romance of mothers and daughters, both
subjects, speaking to each other and living in familial and communal contexts which
enable the subjectivity of each member” (163). Furthermore, Hirsch’s intention is to
perceive the differences among women not from a biological and idealizing point of
view, but from a perspective of experience to underscore the differences between
women. She wants to view women as part of a social, historical and subjective
reality in which the mother is also seen from the subject position as well as the
object position, which is in contrast with the traditional psychoanalytical view of
analysing mothers from an object position only. Psychoanalytical feminists have been
able to depict the female child next to the male, but they have not managed to
display the perspective of the adult female, which merely exists in relation to her
child and never receives attention as the main subject: “And in her maternal
function, she remains an object, always distanced, always idealized or denigrated,
always mystified, always represented through the small child’s point of view” (Hirsch
167).
Furthermore, Hirsch states that in psychoanalysis, the child will only reach
independence and a sense of self through a hostile break from the mother. As stated
before Chodorow’s view on this matter is quite different, because she states that for
the identity development of the daughter, she needs to remain close to the mother.
However, she does acknowledge the importance for the child, either male of female,
to undergo a process of separation to find self. Hirsch criticizes the fact that this view
does not change the perspective of the mother, as it was originally depicted in
Freud’s work. Still, the mother is depicted as someone who is “overly invested in her
child, powerless in the world, a constraining rather than an enabling force in the
girl’s development, and an inadequate and disappointing object of identification”
(Hirsch 169). Although theorists like Chodorow have somewhat changed the original
outline, the theories are still based on the child’s point of view and not on the
mother’s perspective.
Another factor which Hirsch addresses is the model of female friendship in
feminist discourse. Throughout the 1970s, sisterhood and female friendship have
been referred to as functioning as surrogate motherhood in feminist discourse. Again
this attention for female friendship could be the result of the desire of the daughter
to break free from the mother and create her own identity by doing so: “With its
possibilities of mutuality and its desire to avoid power, the paradigm of sisterhood
has the advantage of freeing women from the biological function of giving birth, even
while offering a specifically feminine relational model” (Hirsch 164). However, the
friendship between females could substitute the mothering process, since a mutual
mothering process can take place. Also, where the normal mother/daughter
relationship does not provide sufficient room for the daughter to become
autonomous, the female friendship does allow just that: “[T]he ideal of sisterhood
and of reciprocal surrogate motherhood highlights the maternal as function, but
rejects and makes invisible the actual mother, who, it is implied, infantilizes the
daughter and fails to encourage autonomy” (164).
1.2 - Race and Class in Psychoanalysis
Over the years, psychoanalysis in general, and, more specifically, the related
feminist models have received criticism from many corners. Many have questioned
the reliance on certain aspects of the Freudian model, the differences in definitions of
certain key notions, such as the distinction between “public” and “private” spheres in
Chodorow’s work and the assumption of the heterosexuality of women (Spelman 85).
Although these different forms of criticism are all valuable and worth discussing, in
this study the main focus will be on a different point of criticism, namely the notion
that the models proposed by Chodorow and others are predominantly based on
white, Western ideals. Using the model in a different racial and cultural context could
generate complications. Special criticism about the lack of attention to race and
gender in feminist psychoanalytical theory in general and especially in Chodorow’s

theory is stated by Elizabeth V. Spelman in her book Inessential Women: Problems
of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (1988). She stresses the importance of discussing
gender in a context of other variables, such as race and class. Spelman states that
“[m]uch of feminist theory has proceeded on the assumption that gender is indeed a
variable of human identity independent of other variables such as race and class,
that whatever one is a woman is unaffected by what class of race one is” (81). Also,
despite Chodorow’s claim to view the variables separately, “she goes on to suggest
ways in which the sexist oppression intimately connected to gender differences is
related to racism and classism” (81). Although Spelman acknowledges the
importance of Chodorow’s work, and considers it to be compelling and essential, she
claims that treating variables as gender, race and class as separate processes is
highly problematic, because in her opinion these factors are tightly intertwined and
their relationship more complicated than many would suspect (82).
One aspect of criticism is Chodorow’s placement of the mothering process in a
social context, in which the relationship of the woman to the man, economic
dependence, and male dominance are the most important variables. The subtitle of
Chodorow’s book The Reproduction of Mothering – “Psychoanalysis and the Sociology
of Gender” – shows the culture-bound aspect of the book and its dependency on
trends in societies and psychological theories (Levin 81) and this indicates that
Chodorow’s theory can only apply to one specific culture at one time and does not
lend itself to be applied to different cultures and societies simultaneously. Spelman
stresses that the social male/female relationship cannot merely be confined to these
elements. Most societies are also characterised by other social relationships, which
are influenced by elements of race and class. Not only is women’s mothering formed
by the relationship to the male dominated society, but also by the relation to people
of other races and classes and the personal experience and interpretation of these
relationships by the mothers (85).
Another aspect in which race and class are of great importance is family life.
Obviously, family life and society are tightly intertwined and therefore families
cannot be separated from the racial, class and ethnic elements that influence them.
Spelman points to Chodorow’s assumption that it is the family’s duty to create
children who are “gendered, heterosexual, and ready to marry” (85) and asks
whether these are the only aspects the family should take into account when raising
children. Although Chodorow does not explicitly state the importance of paying more
attention to race and class, she does state that the mothering of children should
result in the reproduction of society and “must lead to the assimilation and internal
organization of generalized capacities for the participation in a hierarchical and
differentiated social world” (32). The mother has the responsibility to raise and
prepare her children to face a world in which people will have certain expectations of
them and that this is influenced by factors such as race and culture. This shows that
Chodorow is not unaware of other dominating forces than sexism; she merely tends
to view the different processes as separate.
Another factor which is important in the context of the influence of race and
gender is Chodorow’s claim that “women’s mothering is one of the few universal and
enduring elements of the sexual division of labor” (3). With these words she
indicates that although different cultures differ in the interpretation of the
male/female labour division, mothering is always done by women. Simultaneously,
Chodorow is aware of the fact that mothering “is not an unchanging transcultural
universal” (32). This indicates that the way mothers mother depends on the social
and cultural context in which the mothering occurs. Mothers are expected to provide
the children with “affective bonds and a diffuse, multifaceted, ongoing personal
relationship” (33) in which the mother needs to prepare her children for a life in
which the children will come across specific conditions and requirements. Mothering
is not only meant for bringing up the children by means of feeding and clothing
them, but also by providing proper psychological equipment with which they can
prepare themselves for the world they are expected to live in. The specific
interpretation of the mothering process will be different according to racial, ethnic
and class background. A working middle-class family will depend on different
conditions which the children will need in future life than a higher-class family. The
same could be said for differences in racial backgrounds. Families from an African-
American background will provide a different basis for children than an Asian-
American family.
In the next section, novels of two ethnic female writers will be discussed with
reference to the importance of the mother/daughter relationship, and its implications
on the identity development of the female characters. The novels in question are
Toni Morrison’s Sula and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.
Chapter 2: The Mother/Daughter Relationship in Toni

Morrison’s Sula
In the last chapter, a general psychoanalytical framework was established in which it

became clear that the mother/child relationship and the father/child relationship
influence the identity development of the children differently. Nancy Chodorow’s
theory was explained with special attention to the mother/daughter relationship and
the importance of the closeness to the mother of the daughter. Furthermore,
Marianne Hirsch’s interpretation of psychoanalysis and feminism was discussed with
reference to using it as an interpretive framework for analyzing literary fiction. In
this section, the novel Sula (1973) by the African-American female writer Toni
Morrison will be analysed in the light of the Chodorow’s and Hirsch’s theories. The
tradition of the black American female writers has fronted the mother in many
diverse and complex ways. The traditional oral past and the strong connection to the
maternal line and history have inspired black female writers to view their artistic self
as connected to generations of women before them: “Even when they write in the
voices of daughters rather than mothers, the black feminist writers in this tradition
tend to find it necessary, much more than white feminist writers, to ‘think back
through their mothers’ in order to define themselves identifiably in their own voices
as subjects” (Hirsch 177). The importance of the connection between mother and
daughter is underscored here as well. In Fabrication of Selves: Girls of Color Coming
of Age (2005), Babs Boter emphasizes Hirsch’s statement that in the black family
romance, mothers and daughters share the experiences of racist and sexist
oppression and live their lives continuously connected to and intertwined with each
other (120). The influence of the mothers on the identity development, and life of
the daughters is one of the main themes of Sula. Before the mothers and daughters
of the novel will be discussed, an outline of the novel and characters will be given
first. Then, the relationship between Eva and Hannah Peace will be discussed, after
which the relationship between Hannah and Sula Peace will be analysed.
Furthermore, the mother/daughter relationship between Helene and Nel Wright will
be discussed, continuing with the friendship between Sula and Nel. In order to
complete the view on the different mother/daughter relationships, some insight will
be given in the male characters of the novel. This section will be concluded with a
discussion.
2.1 - Outline of Sula
The story of the novel Sula is set between 1919 and 1965, and it describes the lives
of the women in two matriarchal households in the neighbourhood The Bottom in the
fictional town of Medallion, Ohio. The Wrights are a conventional, middle class family,
living according to expected traditions and morals, whereas the Peaces have a rather
unconventional household, where tradition and moral are unfamiliar notions. The
friendship between Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who represent the new generations of
the two families, is the central aspect of the novel. Nel’s calm and balanced
disposition, and Sula’s more fiery and rigid character, shows the distinction between
the two girls. The girls’ dissimilar social backgrounds within the black community,
underline their individual difference as well. However, because of these differences,
they complement each other. Besides containing a story of friendship, the novel also
discusses the complicated interactions between the mothers and daughters of the
Peace and the Wright families. These complications already show in the relationship
between Eva and Hannah Peace, respectively Sula’s grandmother and mother, and
between Nel’s mother, Helene Wright and her mother. Sula and Nel are depicted
from early adolescence until old age. As young women, both Sula and Nel want to
construct their own lives, stand up against the conventions of their time and create
new stories for themselves. As they grow up, the protagonists learn about the
possibilities and, especially, the limits of their lives. The combination of opposite
characters, different social backgrounds and the interaction with the maternal history
inevitably leads to Nel and Sula’s identities: “their development and their friendship,
and the text itself, revolve around their relationships to the powerful maternal
figures who come to represent a female past and around their attitude to maternity
itself” (Hirsch 178). The mothers and daughters in Sula represent the connection
between the future and the past.
2.2 - Eva and Hannah Peace
Long before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison thoroughly describes the
ancestral line of both the Peaces and the Wrights. By doing this, Morrison creates
anticipation for the protagonists and shows the importance of the influential maternal
history. The most dominant maternal figure in the story is Eva Peace, Sula’s
grandmother and owner of a gigantic house in which both Sula and Nel spend a great
part of their childhoods. In the house, there is plenty of room for tenants, stray
people, newly weds and orphan children. Eva is portrayed as a very powerful and
strong presence and this is emphasised by Eva’s physical absence. Early on in the
story it becomes clear that young Eva’s marriage to her husband BoyBoy will not last
forever. After Eva is abandoned by BoyBoy, she takes drastic measures to ensure the
survival of her three children and herself. Morrison tells the story of Eva who has to
endure a miserable winter with three children and no money to provide for them.
After having sacrificed the last piece of lard on relieving the constipated bowels of
her baby son Plum, and contemplating the misery she is in, she realises that
something has to be done: “She shook her head as though to juggle her brains
around, then said aloud, ‘Uh uh. Nooo’. […] As the grateful Plum slept, the silence
allowed her to think. Two days later she left all of her children with Mrs. Suggs,
saying she would be back the next day” (Sula 34). Then the narrative contains a
gap, and the reader meets Eva again, eighteen months later, with a pocketbook full
of money, but with one missing leg. The importance of absence is stressed here
literally, through the physical incompleteness of Eva’s body. Furthermore, absence is
stressed through the style of narration. Throughout the story, the mystery
surrounding Eva’s amputated leg remains the source of endless narrative for the
inhabitants of the Bottom and the details are never shared. Later, Eva again takes a
dramatic decision to rescue one of her children. She releases her son Plum from his
heroine addiction by setting him on fire and thereby killing him.
Although all Eva’s actions are the result of intense motherly love, this is very
difficult to understand for her other children, especially for her daughter Hannah,
Sula’s mother. The eighteen month separation has severely influenced the emotional
bonding between mother and daughter. Eva’s reasons for her actions are never
explicitly shared between mother and daughter Hannah or in the story in general. At
one point Hannah asks “Mamma, did you ever love us?” (Sula 58). The poverty in
which the Peaces were forced to live, threatened the survival of Eva and her children.
To deal with this threat practically, Eva must detach herself emotionally from her
children. To Eva the knowledge that she gave up many things to ensure the survival
of her children, should be sufficient proof of her motherly love. In reply to Hannah’s
question, Eva says: “You settin’ here with your healthy-ass self and ax me did I love
you? Them big old eyes in you head would a been two holes full of maggots if I
hadn’t” (68). However, to Hannah, providing material needs does not add up to her
definition a loving mother: “I didn’t mean that, Mamma. I know you fed us and all. I
was talkin’ ‘bout something else. Like. Like. Playin’ with us? Did you ever, you know,
play with us?” (68). Obviously, for Hannah personal attention from and engagement
with her mother is imperative for feeling loved and connected to her mother,
although for Eva her love is evident from everything she has done and sacrificed for
her children. In response to Hannah’s question for acknowledgment and love, Eva
can only respond in terms of how she tried everything to secure their survival. She
can only tell “stories that fail to fit into the mythology of motherhood to which
Hannah wants to subscribe” (Hirsch 180).
Then Hannah asks why Eva killed Plum, and when Eva finally answers, it is:
“[l]ike two people were talking at the same time, saying the same thing, one a
fraction of a second behind the other” (71). In this part of the novel, Eva is not only
portrayed from a subject perspective, but also from her perspective as a mother. The
narrative reflects Eva’s double identity and it signals: “the self-division that by
necessity characterizes and distinguishes maternal discourse” (Hirsch 181). Eva
explains that she could not live with seeing her son deteriorate and behaving like an
infant again, due to the drug addiction: “I done everything I could to make him leave
me and go on and live and be a man but he couldn’t and I had to keep him out so I
just thought of a way he could die like a man not all scrunched up inside my womb,
but like a man” (72). Hannah does not reply to this confession and goes on with her
chores as if nothing happened. Although both women attempt to discuss important
issues, the “[m]aternal speech is sparse in this novel: mothers and daughters never
quite succeed in addressing each other directly, mothers fail to communicate the
stories they wish to tell” (Hirsch 179-180). Both Eva and Hannah do not receive the
acknowledgement and understanding they both seek. The failed communication
between mother and daughter, and the lack of motherly love, influence Hannah’s
ideas of mothering and the perception of herself: “Although Hannah is herself a
mother, her discourse is circumscribed by her daughterly relation to Eva and by
conventional and clearly inapplicable conceptions of motherhood and maternal love”
(Hirsch 180). As a result, Hannah does not know how to mother her own child.
2.3 - Sula and Hannah Peace
Sula, the next generation of the Peace line, takes after her grandmother and mother.
Sula’s birthmark, which looks like many things, depending on who perceives it,
distinguishes her from other women and forces her to acknowledge her vulnerability.
Just like Eva had to fight against her powerlessness and vulnerability, because her
husband had left her with nothing, Sula has to fight against the town’s prejudice
against her and her family. Being raised in the unconventional household, which is
the exact opposite of what the town’s people consider the norm, because of the
sexual morale Hannah Peace lives by, Sula has to disguise her difference, just like
her grandmother had to. Furthermore, Eva’s drastic measure, as an act of survival
and denial of powerlessness and vulnerability is repeated by Sula early on in the
story. During their walks home from school, Nel and Sula are regularly threatened by
some boys. At one time Sula takes a knife, and cuts off part of her finger, saying: “If
I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?” (54-55). Hirsch comments:
“This act is Sula’s own moment of self-recognition, of her affiliation with Eva and the
world of her maternal ancestors” (182). Here, Sula understands that she has to fight
against her own vulnerability, and establish her identity, hereby following her
grandmother Eva’s example. However, this moment of self-recognition does show
her inner strength, but it can never truly disguise her being different from the rest.
Just like Eva and Hannah, Sula continues the inescapable maternal line of rebelling
against the conventions and traditions of gender roles, but lacks the “capacities for
emotional nurturing, empathy and connection” (Gillespie et al 40). Eva’s independent
attitude and withdrawal from personal, caring and mothering aspects leave her
daughter and granddaughter with few caretaking skills to be learned. This results in
Sula’s clumsy caretaking of Nel in their friendship, which is, in the light of the
contexts, highly inappropriate and unnecessary, but understandable because Sula
has never learned ordinary and conventional means to solve problems. Although
Sula is connected to her family in the sense that she behaves similar to her
grandmother and mother, she does feel disconnected on a personal level, because:
“Eva bequeaths to Hannah, and Hannah in turn bequeaths to Sula, a capacity for
emotional distance which allows for the creation of the female self” (Gillespie et al
36). Although, this will enhance her ability to establish a self, it will decrease her
ability to care for others and to be cared for herself.
The question of maternal love is also shared between Hannah and Sula, just
as it is shared between Eva and Hannah. However, different from the direct
confrontation between the latter two, the confrontation between Hannah and Sula is
indirect. Sula overhears her mother discussing her children with two friends, and
hears her state that she does love Sula, but simply does not like her (Sula 57). The
denial of unconditional motherly love leaves Sula deeply hurt until Nel calls her to
come and play by the water. There, they meet town-boy Chicken Little and are
involved in his accidental drowning, and for Sula, these are the two most formative
events in her life: “The first experience taught her there was no other that you could
count on; the second that there was no self to count on either” (Sula 103).
2.4 - The Wrights: Helene and Nel
Although the Wright family differs from the Peace family in terms of class and status,
the mother-daughter relationships show similar complications. Where Eva breaks
with social convention by claiming autonomy through amputating her leg, Helene can
be characterised as someone who tries everything in her power to live up to the
expectations imposed on her by her upbringing and environment. Being born the
daughter of a New Orleans prostitute and raised by her grandmother, Helene flees to
the north by marrying an outsider to the community. Once fled to and established in
the Bottom, she tries to live up to the virtuous expectations her grandmother
imposed on her: “[Helene Wright was a] women who won all social battles with
presence and a conviction of the legitimacy of her authority. […] She lost one battle
– the pronunciation of her name. The people of the Bottom refused to say Helene.
They called her Helen Wright and left it at that” (18). By refusing to pronounce her
French name properly, the people in the neighbourhood refuse to fully adjust to
Helene’s standards, because she insults the Bottom “by setting new standards of
‘proper’ behaviour” (Lounsberry et al 126). Not only does Helene take on social and
religious responsibilities, she also manipulates her family, to feel as distant from her
family and background as possible: “[She] enjoyed manipulating her daughter and
her husband. She would sigh sometimes just before falling asleep, thinking that she
had indeed come far enough away from the Sundown House” (19). This way, Helene
can escape the feelings of shame and live her life as moral as possible. However, her
intentions are not genuine and “represent the meltdown of the self that occurs when
women unconsciously adhere to social convention”. (Gillespie & Kubitschek 23).
Helene leads a moral and respectable life because it is motivated by her own fear of
rejection by society. Her life “seems more a denial of a former life than an
affirmation of an improved one” (Carmean 33). Helene’s behaviour and identity is
influenced by the lack of a relationship with her mother, and this has forced her into
the manipulated life she leads in the Bottom. The attempts to control her life do not
influence Helene alone, but they especially influence her daughter, Nel. All her life
Helene has tried to manipulate her and made her aware of her plain looks: “[She
was grateful] that the child had not inherited the great beauty that was hers: […]
[Nel] had taken the broad flat nose of Wiley (although Helene expected to improve it
somewhat) and his generous lips” (Sula 18). Helene does not accept her daughter’s
looks for what they are and forces Nel to pull her nose with a clothespin. Through
this, Helene creates a barrier between her and her daughter and influences Nel’s
perception of herself.
Not only do Eva and Hannah Peace fail in directly communicating with each
other, the miscommunication between mother and daughter is also apparent in the
situation of Helene and Nel Wright. At one point, Helene and Nel undertake a tiring
train ride down south, to attend the funeral of Nel’s great-grandmother. During the
train ride, Nel becomes aware that although her mother tries to live a respectable
life, respectability is a relative notion and that it can easily be demolished by certain
variables, such as racism. It is striking that Morrison continues the story from Nel’s
perspective and shows how Nel perceives her mother after this experience. By this
perspective, the reader does not only discover the feelings of Helene, but also the
effect of the experience on Nel. The scene clearly shows the effect of the mother’s
behaviour on the daughter, but also the influence of societal and racial factors on the
overall status in society. It is striking that the insulting remarks of the white
conductor is not the most demeaning one, but it is the reaction of the fellow black
travellers which intensifies the racist remarks of the conductor. Helene’s reaction to
the conductor’s insult raises silent hatred among the Black men in the coach.
Morrison reflects this situation through Nel’s eyes: “She [Nel] saw the muscles of
their faces tighten, a movement under the skin from blood to marble. No change in
the expression of the eyes, but a hard wetness that veiled them as they looked at
the stretch of her mother’s foolish smile” (Sula 21-22). By Helene’s attempt to live a
life above the standards of the Bottom, she is not only discriminated by whites, but
also by her own community.
In New Orleans, Nel, who does not understand a word of Creole her
grandmother speaks to her, finds out that her own mother also does not know
Creole. Being raised by her grandmother, Helene has never learned to communicate
with her own mother and, consequently, Helene has never taught Nel to
communicate with her. Nel, deeply influenced by the experiences of the trip,
understands that she has changed. The trip to New Orleans, the humiliation of her
mother by both the white conductor as well as the black men, the emotional distance
between her mother and grandmother, makes her begin a new life: “I’m me. I’m not
their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me” (Sula 24). Nel sees her mother fail in many
ways; in the adoption of middle-class values, in manipulation Nel and her father, in
connecting to her own mother: “Nel’s image of her mother as formless custard barely
contained by her heavy velvet dress makes it imperative that she identifies herself as
separate, different from her maternal heritage, as a very definite ‘me’” (Hirsch 180).
However, Morrison explains that “that was before she met Sula” (Sula 29). In Sula,
Nel finds a friend, who can show her a different view on the world, which will free her
from the orderliness of her maternal home and will offer support and reflection in
Nel’s process of defining her own life.
2.5 - Nel Wright and Sula Peace
The friendship between Nel and Sula has been analysed as a way to substitute the
lack the girls experience in their relationships with their mothers (Gillespie et al 41).
Both girls have been raised in different milieus. Nel has been raised in a middle-class
family, whereas Sula has been raised in a highly unconventional lower-class
household, which has depleted her from experiencing traditional care. With the
friendship of Sula, Nel finds the strength to separate from her mother, whereas Sula
finds a replacement for the disconnectedness in her family. During their childhood
friendship they are mutually dependent on each other and therefore take equal part
in the relationship: “both Sula’s freedom of self-expression and Nel’s consistent
regard for others are necessities for authenticity” (Gillespie et al 41). As their images
of themselves are changed by societal factors in the course of their lives, so is their
friendship. The girls are intertwined until their adolescence, when Nel marries and
Sula leaves Medallion. When they meet again several years later, everything has
changed.
During the lives of Nel and Sula, their identity developments have been
deeply influenced by the maternal line of the two families. Despite their attempts to
live their lives differently from their mothers and grandmothers, Nel and Sula
eventually find themselves living according to expectation. Nel eventually leads the
conventional middle-class life her mother wanted her to lead and Sula is leading the
independent life her mother and grandmother lived, with the lack of caring and
mothering. As a result, Nel and Sula’s views on traditional gender roles are different.
When Nel and Sula meet again as adult, Nel warns the free-fought Sula: “You can’t
do it all. You a woman and a colored woman at that. You can’t act like a man” (Sula
142). To Nel, the main distinction between men and women are children. Women
can act like men, but they can never walk away from their children without being
scolded. Men, according to Nel, have more freedom and choice than black women in
that time.
2.6 - Sula’s Men
Although Sula is primarily based on the description of powerful women, the men in
the novel are used to highlight the strength of the female characters. The description
of the male characters and their view on society is important to complete the full
analysis of the female characters and their underlying relationships. The male
characters in the novel seem to fit Chodorow’s suggestion that “for boys,
identification processes and masculine role learning are not likely to be embedded in
relationship with their fathers or men but rather to involve the denial of affective
relationship to their mothers” (177). The search for separation creates male
identities and as a result, they are less able to experience intimacy and
interdependency. The position of Nel’s father in the family life is symbolised by his
profession as a seaman. As a result of his job, he is absent in the family life. The
other prominent male figures in the novel, BoyBoy, husband of Eva Peace, Jude,
husband of Nel and Ajax, Sula’s lover, all leave their neighbourhood in Medallion
when their relationships become problematic. The men in the novel who do not
separate themselves from their mothers or the replacing mother figure seem to be
unable to maintain a strong independent identity. The most prominent example is
the three Deweys who live in Eva’s house. At the beginning of the novel it is
explained that Eva took in children, who lived under terrible circumstances, and took
care of them. However, Eva ignored the children’s names and called all three Dewey.
After a while, the identities of the three boys merged into one, and no one could tell
them apart afterwards. The Deweys remain boys during the course of the book,
because when Sula returns to Medallion, they still live in Eva’s house and still need to
be taken care of. They never grow up to be adult men and never detach themselves
from Eva. Besides the Deweys, Eva’s house harbours more men, namely Tar Baby
and son Plum. Like Plum, Tar Baby is addicted, and because of this never turns into
an independent adult male. Morrison’s women-centred description leaves nearly all
man “impoverished in their ability to relate to others” (Gillespie 26). The men in the
novel only play a secondary role. One exception to this rule is Shadrack, the opening
character of the book and the village idiot. He, unlike the other male characters,
does take part in the community, but from a respective distance, and without
addressing the other inhabitants directly.
2.7 - Discussion and Conclusion
Besides being a novel about the relationship between mothers and daughters, and
future and past, the novel “offers a view of female psychological development that
defies traditional male-centered interpretations of female development and calls out
for an expansion of the women-centered paradigms” (Gillespie et al 21). As stated
before, the majority of feminist psychoanalytical theories focus on the experiences of
white middle-class women. In recent discussions, an ethnic dimension has been
added, and this has also been reflected in the work of black novelists. Although these
novelist are not participating in the psychoanalysis, their texts suggest affiliation with
these theories. In this context, it seems that Toni Morrison implicitly criticizes the
white generalization by writing novels about doubly marginalized protagonists, who
are both female and black. Many of her novels delineate the negative influence of
racism and poverty on the mother-daughter relationship. In stressing this subject,
Morrison’s texts open the discussion on how the gendered, individual self is the
result of an inescapable social context and stress the importance of society in the
identity developments of the protagonists, which is similar to the theories, as created
by Chodorow. However, Morrison’s novels suggest that the influence of society on
the mothering process occurs differently from what the theories claim. As mentioned
before, there is disagreement on how societal, racial and class factors are related to
the development of the identities of men and women. Some theorists argue that
these variables could be considered separately, whereas others state that race and
class are tightly intertwined in the mothering process. The influence of variables such
as race and class in society in general, is considered to be of great importance to the
development of identity and mother/daughter relationship of the female protagonists
in the novel. In Sula, Morrison depicts the influence of class by exploring the mother-
daughter relationship in a middle-class family, the Wrights, and a lower class family,
the Peaces. In both families, the mother/daughter relationships suffer from the
problems that race and class bring about. Eva Peace cannot provide the motherly
love that her daughter Hannah needs. In a society where circumstances are harsh
for a mother without a husband, let alone for a black mother, survival is prioritised.
Because of the influences of race and class, Eva could not completely focus on the
mothering process, which infected the personal involvement with her daughter,
Hannah. Hannah, in turn, never learned how to mother herself and fails to connect
with her own daughter, continuing the same process in Sula.
The Wrights’ situation is also a reflection of the influence of race and class on
the mother/daughter relationship. Helene also fails in truly connecting with her
daughter, due to her attempts to live up to her own moral expectations. By doing
this, she imposes her expectations on Nel, trying to change her constantly. Hereby,
Nel can never live up to her mother standards and lacks full acknowledgment and
love. Despite her intention to live a different life than her mother, she eventually
finds herself doing just that. Not only are the lives of Nel and Sula influenced by their
maternal history: “the novel’s portrayal of the mother-daughter relationships is
firmly contextualised in the larger society” (Gillespie et al 23). The novel does not
explain whether Nel and Sula could have lived their lives differently, were their racial
backgrounds different than they are in the story.
The lives of the mothers and daughters in Sula are, perhaps unwillingly,
tightly intertwined. Although nearly all daughters in the novel at one time in their
lives wanted to become different than their mothers, eventually they’ve come to
realise they have not succeeded. Only Sula manages to break the circle of mothering
by not having children, but eventually her relationship with Ajax opens her desire for
a conventional life. Nel, once eager to create stories of her, eventually finds herself
stranded in a life established according to convention and expectation. Limited by
race and class she finds no means to break the mothering process. Despite the
attempts of the female characters to establish their self independently, the
mother/daughter relationship influences by race and class proves to be the most
determining factor on their identity development.
Chapter 3: Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club
In the last chapter, it was established that although the theories by Chodorow and
Hirsch could suffice for analysing the mother/daughter relationship of the writings of
women of colour, variables such as race, class and gender should be taken into
account as well. Although most critics have primarily analysed writings by African –
Americans, it should be noted that the influence of race, gender and class is not
confined to merely one group. Incorporating race, gender and class into the
discussion is important for better understanding of the maternal discourse as Heung
points out: “[A]lthough matrilineage remains a consistent and powerful concern in
the female tradition, the recognition of culturally and historically specific conditions in
women’s lives requires that we appropriately contextualize, and thereby refine, our
readings of individual texts” (597). Although African – American fiction has taken the
lead in the female minority writing discourse, Asian – American fiction has taken an
uprise as well. Several works by writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston and Chuang
Hua have been analysed and discussed wit regard to the relationship between
mother and daughter. A striking similarity between these works is that “each of
these works depicts how a daughter struggles toward self-definition by working
through the mother-daughter dyad” (Heung 598). This indicates that these writings
can also be placed in the tradition depicted by Marianne Hirsch. The daughter
remains the subject in the subject-object relation, whereas the protagonists as
mothers remain in the object position as Heung points out: “Daughter and mother
are separated and forever trapped by the institution, the function of motherhood.
They are forever kept apart by the text’s daughterly perspective and signature”
(598).
As has been stated above, the theories by both Hirsch and Chodorow are
useful for analysing female writings, but they are not universally applicable. Hirsch
does acknowledge the implications of race and class for analysing the
mother/daughter relationship for African – Americans, but Chodorow’s white, middle-
class and Western theory needs to be reconsidered in the light of incorporating
different historical and cultural backgrounds. Such historical and cultural alterations
to Chodorow’s theory should also be taken into account in relation to the Chinese –
American community. Despite the fact that African – American women are doubly
marginalised due to gender and race, the historical cultural and social position of
Chinese – American women seems to be more aggravating. Because of the
devaluated position of Chinese women, which is deeply entrenched in history, they

are “regarded as disposable property or detachable appendages despite their crucial
role in maintaining the family line through childbearing” (Heung 561). The resulting
marginal status of these women reveals itself through the bargaining of which they
are the objects. The arranged marriages, concubinage, forced departure to unknown
families and adoption, are all indicators of the position of women in China. Their
status is dependent on their families’ economic position, the sons they bear and the
influence of the authority figures in their lives.
In this section the mother/daughter relationships in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck
Club (henceforth referred to as the JLC) will be analysed. To generate coherence
between the analysis of Sula and the JLC, the structure of the analyses will be
outlined in similar ways, except for a few minor differences. First, the analysis will be
placed in context and an overview of the novel will be given. Then the themes of the
novel and the notion of “the Joy Luck Club” are discussed. After that, the childhoods
of the Chinese mothers will be discussed, with reference to the influence of the
mother/daughter relationship on their lives. Then the relationship between the
Chinese mothers and their American daughters is discussed. Lastly, the mothers’
attempts to connect the past with the present and their own lives with that of their
daughters will be discussed.
3.1 - Outline of the JLC
Amy Tan’s the JLC, published in 1989, depicts the lives of four Chinese immigrant
mothers and their Chinese – American daughters. Divided into four sections and
sixteen chapters, the voices and stories of four daughters and three mothers are
shared in turns. This novel is remarkable because of the fact that both the voices of
the mothers as those of the daughters are described. Each mother and daughter tell
two stories, with the exception of Jing-mei (American name June) Woo, who tells
four stories and functions as a connecting thread between the lives of the women.
The stories of the mothers are mostly concerned with their pre-1949 past in China,
whereas the daughters tell stories about their childhood and their adult relationship
with their mothers. The lives of the mothers revolve around “the Joy Luck Club,” a
Chinese custom reinvented on American ground by Jing-mei’s mother, Suyuan Woo.
In this club, the four mothers focus on the positive things in life, by celebrating their
joy and luck. Although the novel does not have a central plot, the stories of the
mothers and daughters of the different families are connected, due to the mothers’
participation in the club.
The first section, “Feathers from a Thousand Li Away,” contains the stories of
daughter Jing-mei and of the three mothers, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong and Ying-Ying
St. Clair. In Jing-mei’s story, the reader learns that Suyuan Woo has passed away
and that Jing-mei has been asked to replace her in the Joy Luck Club. Jing-mei also
replaces her mother’s space in the structure of the narrative, because she tells four
stories, instead of two, thereby also telling the stories of her mother. The stories of
the mothers in this section, explain their childhood experiences in China and their
relationship with their mothers. In the second section, “The Twenty-six Malignant
Gates,” it is the daughters who tell stories. Taking turns, Waverly Jong, Lena St.
Clair, Rose Hsu Jordan and Jing-Mei Woo individually tell about their childhoods in
the United States and the influence of their mothers. The third section, “American
Translation,” again contains stories of daughters, but now they connect their
childhoods’ experiences to their present adult situation and life. In the last section of
the novel, “Queen mother of the Western Skies,” the mothers try to connect their
past to the lives of their daughters.
3.2 - Jing-mei and Joy Luck
In the opening chapter of the novel, daughter Jing-mei Woo explains to the reader
that she has been asked to replace her deceased mother in the club. Being the only
American-born daughter among Chinese mothers, Jing-mei’s story introduces the
themes of the novel: disconnected mothers and daughters, estrangement from as
well as familiarity with each other and the hope of finding a way to connect.
Moreover, the importance of her story is represented in the other stories of the
mothers and daughters. The outline of Jing-mei’s opening story is important for the
understanding of the other stories. It reveals her discovery of her mother’s secrets
and her realisation of how little she knew about her. This realisation sets the tone for
the novel and Jing-mei recalls her mother telling stories about how the Joy Luck Club
was invented in China and how her mother had to leave during the war with the
Japanese. Jing-mei always considered these stories to be fictional Chinese fairy tales.
Then her mother mentions two babies, she had to leave behind and the story
becomes reality. During her participation in the club, Jing-mei finds out that her
mother had been searching for her two other daughters for her entire life, without
ever speaking about it to her or her father. Now, after her death, the girls are finally
found and it is Jing-mei’s duty to tell them about their mother. However, Jing-mei
feels insecure and says she does not know what to tell them. Jing-mei also feels she
can never be a suitable replacement for her mother and remembers something from
the past: “A friend once told me that my mother and I were alike […]. When I shyly
told my mother this, she seemed insulted and said, ‘You don’t even know little
percent of me! How can you be me? And she’s right. How can I be my mother at Joy
Luck?” (15). When the mothers react with disbelief: “Imagine, a daughter not
knowing her own mother!” (31), Jing-mei realises that the mothers are afraid:
In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all
the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who
grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid
when they explain things in fractured English. […] They see daughters who
will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from
generation to generation. (JLC 31)
Seeing their own daughters reflected in Jing-mei and realising how little she knew
about her own mother’s past and intentions, the mothers realise the relationships
with their daughters are the same and their stories need to be told, before it is too
late. In the novel, the communication between the mothers and daughters is not
only disturbed by generational differences. Most important is the barrier of two
cultures clashing; the older Chinese culture and the present American culture (Shear
194). Moreover, the mothers and daughters have to overcome the class difference
that has come between them. The Chinese mothers have always been manual
labourers, whereas the daughters have had the opportunity to educate themselves
and climb the social ladder. Therefore, racial, cultural, and class differences between
mother and daughter influence their individual interpretation of situations and cause
miscommunication and misunderstanding.
3.3 - The Mothers: Stories of the Past
The mothers’ relationships with their own mothers have influenced their notions of
motherhood. In the mothers’ stories of the past a pattern of disrupted families and
disconnection with the maternal line of the families, due to the cultural notions of
class and gender relations, is revealed. In the first section of the book, An-mei Hsu,
Lindo Jong and Ying-Ying St. Clair explain childhood experiences and the
relationships with their mothers, which they consider important for their daughters to
know. An-mei Hsu was raised by her grandmother, having only vague memories of
her mother, who is the third concubine of a wealthy merchant and leads a life full of
disgrace. When her grandmother is dying, her mother returns and An-mei realises
the strength of the maternal line between her and her mother, but also between her
mother and her grandmother. Even though An-mei has not seen her mother in
years, she feels drawn to her: “Here is how I came to love my mother. How I saw in
her my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones” (40). Despite
the fact that An-mei’s grandmother does not acknowledge her daughter’s presence,
their relationship still shows the deep connection between mother and daughter.
After An-mei’s mother attempted to save her mother by adding her own flesh to a
Chinese herbs and medicine soup, An-mei realises: “This is how a daughter honors
her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones” (41). From the relationship
between her mother and grandmother, An-mei realises that the mother-daughter
connection cannot be denied.
Lindo Jong’s story also reflects her disconnection from her family, albeit in a
different manner. At age two, Lindo is matched to a young boy from an unknown
family and forced to marry him at age sixteen. From the moment the marriage is
arranged, Lindo is treated as if she already belongs to the other family. Her mother
constantly reminds her of the family she is to marry into and refers to her as the
mother-in-law’s daughter, but Lindo says: “My mother did not treat me this way
because she didn’t love me. She would say this biting back her tongue, so she
wouldn’t wish for something that was no longer hers” (45). Although her mother’s
behaviour gives Lindo a sense of rejection, she realises that her mother acts out of
self-preservation, because the mother/daughter connection will soon end.
These stories of disruption and the need to adapt the perceptions of changing
family life constantly, make An-mei, Lindo and Ying-Ying search for identification and
bonding with their families, and especially their mothers. In the original,
psychoanalytical “family romance” of the daughter, as mentioned in chapter 1, the
relationship between mother and daughter is characterised by the generational
conflict and separation from the mother. However, in the stories of An-Mei, Lindo
and Ying-Ying, a search for connecting to and identifying with their mothers is
described (Heung 601). When An-Mei looks into her mother’s face, after many years
of separation, she says: “I saw my own face looking back at me” (37). A similar
process of identification happens to Lindo. When her mother agrees with the
arranged marriage and she has to live with her future-husband’s family, Lindo is not
angry, but decides to behave like a proper daughter-in-law, to honour her mother’s
reputation. Despite the fact that Ying-Ying was raised by a nursemaid, an amah, and
Ying-Ying’s relationship with her resembles a mother/daughter relationship more
than the connection to her actual mother, she still identifies with her true mother: “I
was like her. That was why she named me Ying-Ying, Clear Reflection” (276).
3.4 - The Daughters: Their Childhood
Whereas the mothers were literally and physically detached and separated from their
maternal ancestry due to cultural implications, the daughters in JLC are figuratively
disconnected from their mothers due to other racial, cultural and generational
differences. Therefore, the mother/daughter relationships depicted from the
daughters’ perspective are organised differently from those of the mothers. One
important aspect of the cultural differences between the mothers and daughters is
the fact that they are torn between two linguistic worlds and do not speak the same
language. Despite the fact that the daughters grew up with the Chinese language,
they cannot understand the words of the mothers properly. Chinese is not their
language of expression, because it was not the main language spoken at home, due
to the fact that the families depicted in the novel were not created in China, but in
the United States. The fathers and mothers came from different Chinese linguistic
backgrounds and only had broken English as a common language. Therefore, the
language spoken at home has become a mixture of two Chinese dialects and English.
Throughout the novel, the differences between mother and daughter are
stressed by the linguistic discrepancy. These differences between mother and
daughter are most evidently reflected in the Chinese stories the mothers tell. The
mothers’ stories mostly reflect a world which is unknown and fairy tale-like to the
daughters. Therefore, the daughters are unable to fully grasp the meaning of what is
told by their mothers, also because the mothers’ broken English does not allow the
stories to be translated in proper English. Ying-Ying’s daughter, Lena St. Clair
explains: “I could understand the words perfectly, but not the meanings. One
thought led to another without connection” (JLC 109). Jing-mei Woo realises that:
“My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s
meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard
more” (27). Rose Hsu Jordan, daughter of An-mei Hsu says that she believed
everything her mother said, even though she could not understand her meaning
(206). Also, her mother’s creation of the Old Mr. Chou, the man who holds all the
dreams, scares and confuses Rose as a child and keeps inspiring Rose’s nightmares,
until she is an adult. The linguistic differences between mother and daughter do not
allow complete understanding.
Not only do the mothers tell their stories in Chinese, their mother tongue is
also used strategically. Whenever strong emotions are expressed, such as anger and
joy or when the scene becomes personal, the mothers tend to switch from English to
Chinese, which emphasises their emotions. Jing-mei Woo’s mother scolds her young
daughter for not trying enough at the piano: “‘So ungrateful’, I heard her mutter in
Chinese. ‘If she had as much talent as she has temper, she would be famous now’”
(146). Ying-Ying, married to an American man who does not speak Chinese and with
whom she does not speak in a language, but in moods and gestures, resents the
English words he puts in her mouth and deliberately speaks Chinese to her daughter.
The language the mothers and daughters speak reflects their cultural
awareness in society. The Chinese-born mothers, unable and unwilling to leave
behind their past and culture, inadequately adapt to the American way of life. The
daughters, on the other hand, born in America, are unable to grasp the importance
of their mothers’ culture and do not understand the metaphors and expressions the
mothers use. Furthermore, they are embarrassed about the broken English their
mothers speak and their Chinese customs in public, like Lena St. Clair, who often lies
when she has to translate for her mother (JLC 109). Both are unable to translate
each other’s words and are left confused and excluded from each other’s culture. For
the mothers, the exchange between cultures and generations is highly important,
because according to Chinese customs, the mother’s spirit strengthens the
daughter’s spirit. At one point, Jing-mei understands that the mothers fear the loss
of their family history and knowledge after their deaths: “They see that joy and luck
do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds
‘joy luck’ is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear
grandchildren born without any connecting hope from generation to generation”
(31). The mothers’ and daughters’ lack of proper vocabulary to communicate with
each other hides the mothers in maternal silence. Although the mothers do speak to
their daughters, they fail to share their histories and inner feelings and leave their
daughters unaware of their struggle.
In this context, it is important to note that the maternal silence does not
merely affect the relationship with the daughters. Strikingly, the stories of the past
are not even shared among the mothers, and therefore, the mothers are alone in
their secrets and their behaviour misunderstood. Jing-mei Woo recalls her mother
saying that An-mei Hsu has no spine and does not think before she acts (18). The
reason behind An-mei’s behaviour becomes clear in the novel, but is never shared
with the other mothers. The tendency to keep the inner stories secret is also evident
in the lives of the daughters. The daughters do not communicate with their mothers,
but the daughters do not communicate with each other either, just like the mothers
do not communicate with each other similarly. Although all daughters know one
another, there is no direct communication. This may be the result of growing up in
the American culture, because it could: “convey a basic lack of cultural confidence
on the part of the daughters” (Shear 195). Jing-mei says: “Even though Lena and I
are still friends, we have grown naturally cautious about telling each other too much.
Still, what little we say to one another often comes back in another guise. It’s the
same old game, everybody talking in circles” (28). Just like the mothers, the
daughters do not share their inner feelings.
3.5 - The Daughters: Adult Life
The silence surrounding the mothers and daughters continues even in the adult life
of the daughters. In the chapter “Double Face” Lindo Jong, the mother, tells an
anecdote about the relationship between her and her daughter. Written from the
perspective of the mother, the scene depicts the “limits of viewing identification as
an issue problematic for the daughter alone” (Hueng 962). The motif in this scene is
a mirror, reflecting both mother and daughter. Lindo is seated in front of a mirror as
her daughter Waverly and the hairdresser, Mr. Rory, decide what to do with Lindo’s
hair. While doing this, Waverly and Mr. Rory seem to forget the mother is there.
Although Lindo understands English very well, Waverly continues to translate
everything for her mother, leaving her feeling embarrassed of the shame Lindo sees
on her daughter’s face. Because Lindo’s perspective is depicted here, the reader
notices how the daughterly behaviour infects the mother’s attitude towards
Americans and Americanism. In her silence she scrutinises the interaction between
Waverly and Mr. Rory: “Americans don’t really look at one another when talking”
(JLC 290). Also, she alternates between her “Chinese face” and her “American face”,
which is “the face Americans think is Chinese, the one they cannot understand” (JLC
291). Here, the complications for the communication between the immigrant Chinese
women and their America-born daughters are depicted from a motherly perspective.
The scene suddenly changes, when Mr. Rory remarks the striking similarity
between Lindo and Waverly reflected in the mirror. Lindo notices Waverly’s
discomfort and watches her daughter taking in Mr. Rory’s remark. As mother and
daughter examine each other closely in the mirror, the story written from the
maternal perspective allows the reader to identify with the mother. Although Lindo is
aware of Waverly’s negative response, she is simultaneously moved by their
resemblance: “The same happiness, the same sadness, the same good fortune, the
same faults. I am seeing myself and my mother, back in China, when I was a young
girl” (292). She is reminded of her childhood in China, when she and her own mother
had the same form of identification. Heung states that this is Lindo’s sense of ethnic
identity, which enables her to close the bridge between past and present and
between different cultures (601).
For the mothers, seeing their own lives reflected in the lives of their
daughters, is a reason to open the communication barrier and eventually tell their
stories. Lindo Jong introduces her story of the past, as if she told it directly to her
daughter Waverly: “It’s too late to change you, but I’m telling you this because I
worry about your baby. I worry that someday she will […] forget she has a
grandmother” (42-43). Ying-Ying St. Clair breaks the maternal silence, because she
notices the disconnection between them: “For all these years I kept my mouth closed
so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now
my daughter does not hear me. […] And because I moved so secretly now my
daughter does not see me” (64). She also realises that, although her daughter does
not see her, they are the same: “We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing,
unheard and not hearing, unknown by others” (64). Another mother, An-mei Hsu,
was raised to be humble and swallow her misery and realises that: “[E]ven though I
taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is
because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother
and was born a girl” (241). According to Chinese beliefs, the spirit of the mother
fuses with the spirit of the daughter. In this respect, all mothers feel they have failed
in giving their daughters great strength and spirit so far and need to make amends.
Their individual decision to tell the stories and let the daughters in on their secrets
and histories, is their last attempt to bridge the gap between cultures, generations
and language and restore the brittle mother/daughter relationship.
3.6 - Mother and Daughter Connection
Like the mothers are aware of the disrupted and disconnected relationship between
them and their daughters, the daughters also notice the mysteries that surround
their relationships. From their childhoods on, the daughters’ identities have been
influenced by their mothers’ Chinese customs, which were in contrast with the world
around them. Ying-Ying St. Clair says that she has “always known a thing before it
happens” (275) and although her daughter Lena has always known her mother’s
ability, she explains: “She sees only bad things that affect our family. And she knows
what causes them. But now she laments that she never did anything to stop them”
(161). Ying-Ying says that she has to make her daughter aware of her painful past in
China and explain how her spirit was destroyed in the past and how she needs to
bring back her fierceness in the present: “I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my
daughter’s tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. […] But I will win and give her
my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter” (286).
The Chinese conventions of Lindo Jong also influenced Waverly’s perception of
her mother/daughter relationship. As a girl, Waverly is told to “bite back your
tongue” (89) and learns how to use her invisible strength, which she thinks is the
secret of her success in her chess competitions. When she notices her mother is
taking all the credit for her talent, Waverly decides not to play anymore. Then, when
her mother ignores her silent warfare, Waverly notices her mother’s own ability to
use these same tactics and loses the power struggle between them. Throughout her
life, Waverly feels inadequate and small when she is confronted with her mother’s
perfectionist attitude towards her. It is only when she decides to stand up to her
mother and wants to tell her she can take decisions for herself, that she
unexpectedly is confronted with her constant misinterpretations of her mother’s
intentions. When Waverly wants a reason for her mother’s so-called intentional
demeaning remarks, Lindo says: “You think I have a secret meaning. But it is you
who has this meaning” (201). Then, Waverly finally sees who her mother really is:
“an old woman, […] getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to
invite her in” (204). All her life, she had feared her mother unnecessarily, letting the
cultural, linguistic and generational barrier stand between them.
Daughter Rose Hsu Jordan was influenced by the Chinese notions of her
mother as well. In her childhood Rose had heard her mother An-mei say that: “A girl
is like a young tree […] You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next
to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight” (213). Unfortunately, Rose
says that her mother’s words came too late and that she had already begun to bend
and in her life, she has always lived according the opinions of others. When Rose’s
husband is filing for divorce, Rose realises she has been living in his shadow, unable
to make decisions for herself. Only after her mother asks her why she does not stand
up for herself, and Rose realises her husband wants to cut her from his life
disrespectfully, she notices that: “[for] the first time in months, after being in limbo
all that time, everything stopped. All the questions: gone” (217). After she has made
a decision, her nightmares about Old Mr. Chou and her mother finally disappear. All
her life, Jing-mei Woo, has felt inadequate and unable to live up to her mother’s
wishes and expectations.
Entangled in a boasting competition between her mother and Lindo Jong,
Jing-mei never felt she could live up to chess champion Waverly Jong, even in her
adult life. When Jing-mei’s mother gives her a jade pendant and adds: “See, I wore
this on my skin, so when you put it on your skin, then you know my meaning. This is
your life’s importance” (235), she realises her mother appreciates her more than she
always anticipated. When Jing-mei arrives in China to meet her two half-sisters and
tell them about their mother, she starts to feel different: “I can feel the skin on my
forehead tingling, my blood rushing trough a new course, my bones aching with a
familiar old pain. And I think, My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese” ( 306).
Eventually, when she meets her half-sisters, together they are like their mother: “I
know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same
mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish” (332). Although
Jing-mei’s connection to her mother does not occur in real life, she does connect to
her mother, in connecting to her past.
In Amy Tan’s novel, the mothers/daughter relationship is influenced by
cultural and racial factors. Although the mothers and daughters both notice the
disturbed relationship due to the inability to communicate, literally and figuratively,
eventually they find a way to connect. The mothers’ connection to their mothers was
tainted by factors such as gender, class and culture, whereas the daughters’
connection to the mothers was influenced by the clash between the old Chinese
culture and the new American culture, with all its complications.
Chapter 4 - Discussion
In the previous chapters, the mother/daughter relationships in Toni Morrison’s Sula

and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club have been analysed and discussed, with reference
to the psychoanalytical theories by Chodorow and the literary analysis of Hirsch. The
analyses show that both novels give insight into the mother/daughter relationship in
general and its profound influence on the identity developments of the daughters.
Although the novels discuss similar themes, namely the connection between mothers
and daughters and the influence of race, class and gender on that relationship, both
novels address these aspects differently. In this section, the most important aspects
of the mother/daughter relationships in the novels are discussed. Before the contents
of the novels will be discussed, the theoretical frameworks used for the analyses will
be pin-pointed first. The theories of Chodorow and Hirsch will be further discussed
with reference to their usability for analyzing fiction and the implications of using
Chodorow’s white, middle-class, and Western-based theory for the analysis of ethnic
minority literature. Next, the daughterly perspective in the novels and the
representation of the mothers’ perspectives will be discussed. Lastly, the influences
of factors such as race, class, cultural and generational implications on the
communication between the mothers and daughters as they are described in the
novels will be discussed.
Over the years, the feminist psychoanalytical theory created by Chodorow has
been characterised as compelling and essential, but her work also received important
criticism on several aspects. Several important points of criticism are the notions
that Chodorow’s theory is merely based on white, middle-class and Western ideas
and her assumption that her theory can be applied to all societies, leaving ample
room for incorporating the influence of other cultures onto the framework. As stated
in the first chapter, the mothering process as described by Chodorow is a gendered
process which is deeply enrooted in society. Also, Chodorow suggests that the social
and gendered process of mothering can be detached from other processes, such as
the influence of race and class. Many have questioned the possibility of separating
the analyses of society, gender, race and class and have stressed the importance of
analyzing the relationship between these factors. 3 Others suggest that Chodorow’s
application of Western ideas on all possible constructions of societies limits its
3
See the work of Levin; Spelman; and Lorber et al.
usefulness to analyse and study societies that are based on non-Western racial and
cultural assumptions (Levin 82).
Despite the fact that Chodorow suggests that the influence on society of
gender, race, and class could be considered separately, this does not indicate that
Chodorow does not acknowledge the relationship between these factors. Chodorow’s
advise to look at the social context in which mothering takes place leads to the
understanding that: “gender identity is not neatly separable from other aspects of
identity such as race and class” (Spelman 82). The relationship between race, class,
and gender is essentially what constructs the diversities of societies and should be
taken into consideration when discussing the mother/daughter relationship. In
analyzing other ethnic cultures and societies, one should be highly sensitive to the
possibility that gender roles and notions of motherhood can differ among cultures
and cannot be brought back to Western theories in one single step. Furthermore, the
traditional feminist analysis of motherhood, which, in fact, reflects an idealized and
perfect situation, shows that even in a generalized model, the mothering process and
the mother/child relationship proves to be highly complicated. When race and class
are added to the picture, the analysis is complicated even further. In a reaction on
the criticism on her book, Chodorow acknowledges the relationship between gender,
and culture in society and she claims that if she were to write a new Reproduction of
Mothering, she would incorporate these factors (Lorber et al. 514).
In contrast to Chodorow’s approach, in her adaptation of psychoanalysis for
the analyses of literary fiction, Hirsch does take into account the influence of race
and class on the mothering process and the implications they have on the gender
construct. Interestingly, Hirsch does so only with reference to the African-American
society. Although later writers have found Hirsch’s ideas reflected in other ethnic
minority literature,4 her findings need to be reconsidered in the light of the other
cultural and racial context, too. In the perspective of the novels analysed in this
study, the situation of African-American women and Chinese-American women seem
to be similar at a superficial level, but a great difference can be established between
the situations of the women. Where the African-American mothers in Sula are doubly
marginalized, because they are black and female and people from outside their own
community constantly remind them of this marginalization, the Chinese mothers in
the JLC have experienced inferiority laid upon them from within their community
4
For the adaptation of Hirsch’s theory in Chinese-American literary fiction see:
Heung, M. “Daughter-text/Mother-text: Matrilineage in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club”
Feminist Studies 19.3 (September 1993): 597-617.
during their childhood in China. The implications of this marginalization cannot be

detached from the social aspect of mothering. The analyses of the novels show that
the influence of race, gender and class on the mothering process as well as the
construct of society are deeply intertwined and cannot be easily separated. In
general, it can be concluded that Chodorow’s work can be considered an adequate
and sufficient framework for the understanding of the mothering process in general.
However, the influence of race and class on this process should be taken into careful
consideration and Chodorow’s theory should not be used to generalize the mothering
process across cultures and races. Over the years, Chodorow’s and Hirsch’s works
have been used as building blocks from which other analysts and theorists departed
and created their own theories. Theories need to be reconsidered as societies,
cultures and their dynamics change.
Although the plotlines of Morrison’s Sula and Tan’s JLC differ significantly, and
the stories describe different cultures, and different timeframes, the novels contain
several similarities with regard to the construction of the mother/daughter
relationships. When analyzing the novels it becomes clear that in both novels the
daughterly perspective obtains great emphasis. This is in correspondence with the
psychoanalytical theories of Chodorow and others, which also tend to discuss the
mothering process from the position of the daughter instead of that of the mother.
Despite the assumption that in describing the daughterly perspective, the influence
of the mother on the daughter is also clearly depicted, the maternal side of the
mothering process is not overtly present in the novels.
In her book, Hirsch criticizes this aspect of the psychoanalytical framework by
Chodorow and others, and she wonders whether the maternal point of view, while
absent in the traditional theories, can be found in literary fiction. In Sula, nearly all
narrative is presented from a daughterly perspective, in which the reader gets
insight in the daughter’s feelings about the connection to her mother, but never
learns how the mother truly feels about the connection to her daughter. This shows
from the structure of the narrative, which is primarily based on the identity
development of the main protagonists, Nel and Sula, who are daughters, and their
perceptions of the mother/daughter relationship. The viewpoint of the mothers is not
clearly depicted and they are the object of the narrative for most of the novel.
Furthermore, during the few occasions when the mothers of Nel and Sula are the
subject instead of the object of the narrative, they are depicted in relation to their
relationship with their own mothers and are, therefore, still depicted from a
daughterly perspective. For example, when Hannah Peace, mother of Sula, becomes
the subject of the narrative when she confronts her mother Eva with her unhappy
childhood, her position in the novel is not that of mother of Sula, but of daughter of
Eva. However, in Sula, one instant can be found in which a maternal side is
reflected, when Hannah Peace asks mother Eva Peace for the reason of killing her
son Plum. When Eva answers, she is depicted in two ways: as an individual subject
and as a mother. The double identity with which the narrative continues, signals “the
self-division that by necessity characterizes and distinguishes maternal discourse”
(Hirsch 181). In her explanation, Eva seems to reflect the situation from the
perspective of a victim more than she does from a motherly perspective. It seems as
if Eva’s action springs from self-defense more than from maternal interference. Eva’s
moment of lament is one of the sparse moments in which a mother’s viewpoint is
shared, and because of the double identity of her story the maternal side is not
clear.
In the JLC, the daughters’ perspectives are also more present than the
mothers’ perspectives. The majority of the chapters contain stories of the daughters
about their mothers’ influence during their childhoods and their remaining influence
on their adult lives. Despite the fact that the structure of the novel leaves sufficient
space for the mothers to tell stories of themselves, the maternal point of view is
meagerly shared, albeit more than in Sula. In the JLC, the mothers tell stories about
their past in China and all stories depict the relationship they had with their own
mothers. Although the intention of the mothers of telling their childhood stories is
generating a closer bond with their daughters and this is stated in the introductions
to their stories, when telling the actual stories, the mothers are speaking from a
daughterly position and their motherly side is not reflected. In the introductions the
maternal perspectives, reflecting their own lives and that of the daughters, give
insight in the maternal aspect of these women. However, like in Sula, the maternal
discourse is sparsely present and cannot give full insight into the balance between
the perspectives on the mother/daughter relationship of both mothers and
daughters. In general, the overall emphasis on the daughter and making her the
subject of the narrative, while the mother remains the object, does not provide
enough insight in the maternal part of the story. It could be the writers’ intentions to
structure the narratives in this way and focus on the daughterly perspectives. This
choice even enhances the themes of the novels and could make the stories more
powerful to the reader. Providing the reader with the daughterly perspective more
than the motherly perspective could enforce the sense of estrangement between the
mother and daughter characters to the reader. In Sula the motherly perspective is
meagerly shared and the daughterly perspective is most evident. In the JLC, the
reader gets insight into the motherly perspective as well as the daughter’s, but
realizes through the structure of the novel that these stories are told to the reader as
an internal dialogue but not shared between mother and daughter.
Whether the novel’s structure has been chosen deliberately or not, the fact
remains that the analyses of the mother/daughter relationship gives ample insight
into the maternal side of the daughter-based psychoanalytical theories. From the
daughterly perspective from which these novels are written, Hirsch’s quest for the
motherly perspective in fiction seems to fail partially. It remains difficult to gather a
complete view on the mother/daughter relationship, because the daughterly
perspective is represented more clearly than that of the mother.
Next to similarities in the narrative of the novels, the mother/daughter
relationships in Sula and the JLC contain similar complications. To the reader it
becomes clear that in both novels, the relationships between the mothers and
daughters are obscured by racial, cultural and generational differences and
therefore, the identity developments of the daughters are also negatively influenced.
The discrepancies between the mothers and daughters are shown in their different
view on society, which is more evident in the JLC than in Sula. Obviously, the
Chinese-born mothers and the American-born daughters experience cultural and
generational differences, because of the fact that they grew up in very different
cultures and countries. Furthermore, the mothers and daughters also differ greatly
with respect to class. The Chinese-born mothers are manual labourers, whereas the
daughters have completed higher education and moved up the social ladder.
Therefore, a great discrepancy can be established between the perceptions of the
world in general of the mothers and daughters. In Sula this distinction is less clear.
The difference between the mothers and daughters in Sula is shown in the fact that
the daughters represent a newer generation, which wants to create stories for
themselves.
The disturbed relationships are also depicted through the lack of
communication between the mothers and daughters, because they do not know how
to communicate with each other and/or they simply cannot, due to linguistic
differences. In both novels, the mothers and daughters fail to communicate in a
direct way and thereby fail to bridge the gap created by race, class and cultural
differences. The mothers and daughters fail to connect in a way that is necessary for
a full development of the mother/daughter relationship and the identity development
of the daughters. In Sula, the lack of communication between mother and daughter
is shown in the confrontation between Hannah and Eva Peace. Although Hannah tries
to connect to her mother, Eva fails to fulfill Hannah’s need and does not succeed in
explaining her side of the paradigm to her daughter. As a consequence of her
inability to connect to her mother, Hannah fails to connect with her own daughter,
Sula. The only time when motherhood is the subject of conversation, Sula has to
overhear her mother’s opinion of her and never hears that directly from her mother.
In the JLC, the mothers and daughters, for the largest part of the book, also fail to
communicate directly to each other. In this novel, the stories the mothers and
daughters tell are presented separately and their stories are not explicitly shared
between them.
Not only do the mothers and daughter not know how to communicate, the
mothers and daughters in the JLC have break through a language barrier as well.
The Chinese-born mothers and their American-born mothers have different mother
tongues due to the cultural gap that lies between them. Therefore, they experience
difficulty in fully understanding each other. Despite the fact that they can speak the
language of the other, they lack the proficiency to communicate with each other and
this influences the mother/daughter relationship and the identity development of the
daughter. As the analysis of the JLC showed, eventually the mothers and daughters
find a way to connect and revive the mother/daughter relationship. The language
barrier can also be found in Sula in the situation of Helene Wright. Being raised by
her grandmother instead of her birthmother, she never learned to speak the Creole
her mother speaks and never learned to communicate with her properly. Where in
the JLC the mothers and daughters eventually find a way to connect, Helene fails to
connect with her mother. The generational, cultural, and racial differences between
the mothers and daughters complicate their relationship through the different
perceptions of the world and especially through the inability to communicate for the
mothers and daughters.
The mother/daughter relationship as described in Morrison’s Sula and Tan’s
The Joy Luck Club can be analysed according the theories provided by Chodorow and
Hirsch. However, when using these theories, one should always carefully consider
the implications of race, class and culture and their influence on the Western-based
theories. The contents of the novels show that the main focus of the novels is on the
daughterly perspective and that the maternal side of the mother/daughter

relationship is scarcely shared. Moreover, when the mothers are depicted in the
subject position, their perspective is not always truly maternal, creating an
unbalance between the motherly and daughterly point of view. The mother/daughter
relationship is influenced by different racial, cultural and generational perceptions
and also by their complicating influences on the communication between mother and
daughter. From all these factors it can be concluded that the mother/daughter
relationship in Sula and the JLC is one of the main influences on the identity
development of the daughters and that this relationship suffers from racial, cultural
and generational differences.
Works Cited
Barrett, M. “Psychoanalysis and Feminism: A British Sociologist’s View.” Signs 17.2

(Winter 1992): 455-466.
Bergenholtz, R.A. “Toni Morrison's Sula: A Satire on Binary Thinking.” African
American Review 30.1 (Mar 1996): 89-99.
Boter, Babs. Fabrication of Selves – Girls of Color Coming of Age. PhD-Dissertation,
December, 2005
Chodorow, N. The Reproduction of Mothering – Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of
Gender. University of California Press, 1978.
Galehouse, M. “New World Women: Toni Morrison’s Sula.” Papers on Language &
Literature 35.4 (Sept 1999): 339.
Gillespie, D.; Kubitschek, M.D. “Who cares? Women-Centered Psychology in Sula.”
Black American Literature Forum 24.1 (Mar 1990): 21-49.
Heung, M. “Daughter-text/Mother-text: Matrilineage in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck
Club.” Feminist Studies 19.3 (Sept 1993): 597-617.
Hirsch, M. The Mother/Daughter Plot – Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism.
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989.
Levin, A.K. Africanism and Authenticity in African-American Women’s Novels.
University Press of Florida, 2003.
Lorber, J.; Coser, R.J.; Rossi, A.S.; Chodorow, N “On The Reproduction of Mothering:
A Methodological Debate.” Signs 3.6 (Spring, 1981): 482-514.
Lounsberry, B; Hovet, G.A. “ Principles of Perception in Toni Morrison’s Sula.” Black
American Literature Forum, 13.4 (Winter, 1979): 126-129.
Morrison, Toni. Sula. 1973. Vintage, 1998.
Shear, W. “Generational differences and the diaspora in The Joy Luck Club.”
Critique/Boilingbroke Society 34.3 (Mar 1993): 193-200.
Spelman, Elizabeth V. Inessential Women: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist
Thought. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.
Stein, K.F. “Toni Morrison's Sula: A Black Woman's Epic.” Black American Literature
Forum 18.4 (Winter 1984): 146-150.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ivy Books, 1989.

The Mother/Daughter Relationship in Toni Morrison's Sula and Amy Tan's

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The Mother/Daughter Relationship in

Toni Morrison’s Sula and Amy Tan’s

Marleen du Pree, 0211109

“… [Helen] rose grandly to the occasion of motherhood – grateful, deep down

she predominantly relies on object-relations psychology, which is based on the

Chapter 1 - Feminist Psychoanalytical Framework

In this chapter, a psychoanalytical framework will be established with respect to the

1.1 - The Mother/Daughter and Mother/Son Relationship

Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism (1989), she discusses

1.2 - Race and Class in Psychoanalysis

gender in feminist psychoanalytical theory in general and especially in Chodorow’s

Chapter 2: The Mother/Daughter Relationship in Toni

In the last chapter, a general psychoanalytical framework was established in which it

2.1 - Outline of Sula

2.2 - Eva and Hannah Peace

2.3 - Sula and Hannah Peace

2.4 - The Wrights: Helene and Nel

2.5 - Nel Wright and Sula Peace

2.6 - Sula’s Men

2.7 - Discussion and Conclusion

Chapter 3: Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

devaluated position of Chinese women, which is deeply entrenched in history, they

3.1 - Outline of the JLC

3.2 - Jing-mei and Joy Luck

3.3 - The Mothers: Stories of the Past

3.4 - The Daughters: Their Childhood

3.5 - The Daughters: Adult Life

3.6 - Mother and Daughter Connection

In the previous chapters, the mother/daughter relationships in Toni Morrison’s Sula

during their childhood in China. The implications of this marginalization cannot be

daughterly perspective and that the maternal side of the mother/daughter

Barrett, M. “Psychoanalysis and Feminism: A British Sociologist’s View.” Signs 17.2

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