Mother-Daughter Relationship and the Daughter's Search for an Integrated Self: An Object Relations Reading of Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle

• Main Authors: Wan-chun Chuang, 莊琬君
• Other Authors: Kate Chi-wen Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/04185544825968440990

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 英國語文學系 === 94 === Lady Oracle is Margaret Atwood’s third novel in my view, stands as a transitional work in her treatment of the issues of mother-daughter relationship and daughter as female artist. In Atwood’s corpus, it is the first novel in which the daughter’s growth as an artist is discerned from her childhood to early adulthood. What looms behind the daughter’s creative process is her relationship with her mothers –her biological mother and her surrogate mother, from whom the novel’s heroine, Joan Foster, learns the stereotypical image of female beauty and the constraints imposed upon women in the patriarchal society. This thesis is particularly concerned with the mother-daughter relationship and its influence on the daughter’s psychological development. Specifically, it examines not only Joan’s battling with her mother over her body in the domestic field, but also her interpersonal relationships in her social arena and her creative process. Based on object relations theory, especially Margaret Mahler’s concept of symbiosis, Melanie Klein’s concepts of phantasy and paranoid-schizoid position, and D. W. Winnicott’s idea of transitional phenomena, this thesis argues that Joan’s development through self-splitting, enactment of multiple roles, to finally performing a ritual of death and re-birth denotes first the daughter’s prolonged symbiotic relations with the mothers, escapes into fantasies, and then her gradual realization of the mothers’ limitations and the stereotypes imposed on her. Moreover, it is through creative activities that a genuine understanding of the constraints both mother and daughter share is achieved, and Joan herself is empowered to reject some of the stereotypes. In the introduction of the thesis, I first place Lady Oracle in the context of literary history of female writer’s writings on mother-daughter relationship and then explain the reason why this novel is transitional in Atwood’s corpus. Joan’s paradoxical relationship with her biological mother and her difficulties in rejecting her mothers make this novel an interesting contrast to the preceding women’s texts on mother-daughter plot. Published in 1976, Lady Oracle echoes the multiple voices from mothers, daughters, and female artists since the second wave feminism and anticipates the growth of female artists in Atwood’s later novels. The first chapter draws on Margaret Mahler’s concept of symbiosis and Melanie Klein’s concepts of phantasy and paranoid-schizoid position to explicate Joan’s fight against her mother over the control of her body and her gradual separation from her mother. Joan’s fight is interlaced with an unconscious desire to be fused with the mother, yet maternal and social rejection and her attachment to the surrogate mother later push Joan toward mother-daughter separation and split selves. The second chapter deals with Joan’s adulthood, especially her relationships with men and her growth as an artist. During her adulthood, she is still haunted by her dead mother and her past. With the help of D. W. Winnicott’s ideas of transitional phenomena and potential space, the second chapter argues that by engaging in creative activities, from fantasizing, role-playing to writing, Joan, on one hand, learns to maneuver her interpersonal relationships in accordance with patriarchal values, and on the other hand, moves from divided selves to an integrated self during the creative process, which not only empowers her to reject some stereotypes on women, but also leads to new understanding about her mother. Finally, in the conclusion, I explain how the development in object relations theory, from Klein to Winnicott, helps me structure the analysis of Joan’s development. If Joan is able to reject stereotypes on women through the potential space she creates in writing, with the ambiguous ending of Lady Oracle, Atwood opens up another potential space for us readers.