You are here

Home » Content

“…Aspects of My Life that I am trying to Understand better”: Reinterpreting the Misinterpreted Mother in Doris Lessing’s under My Skin and the Grass is Singing

Journal Name:

  • Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Publication Year:

  • 2017
DOI: 
10.5782/2223-2621.2017.20.4.56

Key Words:

Author NameUniversity of Author
Abstract (2. Language): 
With the application of psychoanalytic and feminist tradition, the psychotherapeutic aspect of interpreting the mother, concept of motherhood and the phenomenon of mothering using feminist tradition is analyzed in this paper. Doris Lessing, through her self-representational writing, fictive protagonists (based on herself and her mother) and by declaring in the later part of her life that her mother was a personality that demanded more thinking, understanding and empathy on her part instead of repulsion, hatred and fear to be like her which is called matrophobia, it can be stated that this psychotherapy of matrophobia (Ashraf 77) is Lessing’s predominant concern in both her novels and autobiographies. However, there are means through which the works emerges out to be psychotherapeutic and tracing out those modes and exploration of the therapy of matrophobia is the primary concern of this research paper.
Bookmark/Search this post with
FULL TEXT (PDF): 
PDF icon arastirmax-aspects-my-life-i-am-trying-understand-better-reinterpreting-misinterpreted-mother-doris-lessings-under-my-skin-and-grass-singing.pdf
  • 4
56
70
  • English

REFERENCES

References: 

Allardice, Lisa. “Lisa Allardice on Doris Lessing: She Helped Change the Way Womanare
Perceived and Perceive Themselves.”The Guardian. 13 Nov 2013. Web. 21Dec.
2013.
Ashraf, Rabia. “Psychodynamics of Psychodynamics of Mother Daughter
Relationship:Degrees of Deprivation, Oppression and Dispossession in Doris
Lessing’s Fiction”. Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. 20:1. 2017.
Print.
Atwood, Margaret. “Paradoxes and Dilemmas, the Woman as Writer, Woman in the
Canadian Mosaic.” Feminist Literary Theory- A Reader. Ed. Mary Eagleton.Great
Britian: Billing and Sons Ltd. 1990. Print.
Bondi, Liz. “Making Connections and Thinking through Emotions: Between Geography&
Psychotherapy.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers30.4(2005):433-
448. Web. 6. Jan 2013.
Bowins, Brad. “Psychological Defense Mechanism: A New Perspective.” TheAmerican
Journal of Psychoanalysis 64.1(2004): 1-26. Web. 12 Oct 2013.
Boyd, Carol. J. “Mother and Daughters: A Discussion of Theory and Research.”Journal Of
Marriage and Family. 51. 2 (1989): 291-301. Web. 5 Nov.2013.
Can Emir, Badegül. Literature and Psychology in the Context of the Interaction of Social
Sciences. Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.Volume 19,
Number 4. Khazar University Press, Azerbaijan.2016.49-55
Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and The Sociologyof
Gender. USA: U of California. 1978. Print.
---, “Family Structure and Feminine Personality. ”Women, Culture and Society.
Ed.Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere. Stanford: Stanford UP,1974.
43-66. Print.
Flax, Jane. “Mother-Daughter Relationships: Psychodynamics, Politics, andPhilosophy.”
The Scholar & Feminist XXX: Past Controversies, PresentChallenges, Future
Feminists.3.3. Web . 13. Nov 2013.
---, “The Conflict between Nurturance and Autonomy in Mother-Daughter
Relationshipand Within Feminism.” Feminist Studies: Towards a Feminist Theory
ofMotherhood. 4.2(1978): 171-189. Web. 13. March 2014.
Gardiner, Judith Kegan. “A Wake for Mother: The Maternal Deathbed in
Women’sFiction.”Feminist Studies. 4. 2 (June 1978): 146-165. Web. 13 Feb. 2013.
Georgio, Adalgia. Writing Mothers and Daughters: Renegotiating the Mother inWestern
Europe. United States: Berghahn Books. 2002. Print.
“…Aspects of My Life that I am trying to Understand Better”: Reinterpreting the … 69
Gerorgescu, Anca. “Reconstructing Mother- Daughter Subjectivities through Writingin
Doris Lessing’s Under My Skin.” Valahia: U of Targoviste P, 1998. Print.
Hallstein, Lynn O’Brien. White Feminists and Contemporary Maternity:
PurgingMatrophobia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print.
Hammer, Signe. Daughters and Mothers: Mothers and Daughters. New York:
NewAmerican Library, 1975. Print
Hirsch, Marianne and Evelyn Fox Keller. “Introduction: January 04, 1990.” Conflicts
inFeminism. Eds. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller. New
York:Routledge,1990. 12.Print.
---, The Mother/ Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism. Bloomington
andIndianpolis:UP of Indiana. 16. 1989. Print.
---, “Mothering and Mother-Daughter Relationships: Selected Bibliography.” Women’s
Studies Quarterly/Teaching about Women. 11.4 (1983): 38-43. Web. 3 Dec.2013.
Hutcheon, Linda, A Poetics of Postmodernism History, Theory Fiction. New York,London:
Routledge: 1988.40. Print.
Karen Hamilton. "Truth in Autobiography." Tripod.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Jan. 2014.
Kincaid, Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. New York: Plume Books,
1996.Print.
Lessing, Doris.“Doris Lessing: her Last Telegraph Interview.” The Telegraph,
TelegraphMedia Group 17 Nov, 2013.
---, “Writing Autobiography.” Time Bites- Views & Reviews. Great Britain:
HarperPerennial, 2006. Print.
Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. 2nd ed.New
York: W.W. Norton, 1986. Print.
Schlueter, Paul. “Self Analytic Woman: The Golden Notebook.” “Doris Lessing”.
1986.Modern Critical Views. Ed.Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea
HousePublishers. 46-47. Print.
Scott, Lynda. “Writing the Self- Selected Works of Doris Lessing.” Deep South.
N.d.Web.21 Oct. 2013. Print.
Shilpa, P. “Mother Daughter Relationship: Daughter’s Experience.” Diss. Bangalore Uof
Christ, 2010. Print.
Smith, Sidonie& Julia Watson. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. New York:UP
of Wisconsin. 1998. Print.
Sukenick, Lynn. “Feeling and Reason in Doris Lessing’s Fiction.”1986. ModernCritical
Views. Ed.Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.Print.
“Walking in the Shade: Volume Two Of My Autobiography.” Browse Inside Walking inthe
Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography--1949-1962 by Doris Lessing.N.p., n.d.
Web. 21 Dec. 2013.
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own”. Abrams, M.H. The Norton Anthology
ofEnglish Literature. New York: Norton & Company, 2000. Print.

Thank you for copying data from http://www.arastirmax.com