The Radical Transformation of the Mother-Daughter Relationship in Some Women Writers of Quebec

Abstract

The frequency of mother figures in Quebec literature indicates the central importance in Quebec society of the role of the mother and of family life in general. Such an orientation was probably inevitable since in the past Quebec depended for its survival as a unique Frenchspeaking community in North America upon the perpetuation of very traditional values. The mother was allowed no individual identity in this value system; she was seen solely in terms of her maternal function within the family unit, recognized and appreciated for her domestic virtues alone. The daughter was usually a mother's projection or else her replacement, most often defined in terms of her relationship to the father and master of the household, esteemed or despised according to whether she reflected positively or negatively the mother's qualities. During the 1950's and 1960's a number of women writers produced works in which the mother figure and mother-daughter relationships did not conform to these traditional stereotypes.2 In these works mothers were usually presented in a strong, negative light, as perhaps resentful of their children, overly possessive, hateful, unloving, devoid of feeling, incapable of any kind of authentic response to the world around them. For writers, if not yet for critics, this was a period of separation and refusal, a refusal that is still the starting point for many women writing today. However, other women writers of the 1970's succeeded in going beyond that separation to new affirmation and solidarity. They came to realize with great urgency that without continuity from mother to daughter, women remain detached from their origins and fragmented in their being. Whatever psychological theories may say, the daughter who cuts the umbilical cord completely detaches herself irretrievably from a part of her own past. An exciting collective vision emerged in Quebec during the seventies: that of the unrecognized wonders of the mother-daughter relationship taken in its biological, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects. Writers are speaking out in anger about all they were never allowed to know. They are moving on to the new open spaces in the feminine imaginary--that unexplored area of the female imagination-to the formulation of new myths and symbols, to a fresh use of language, and to the search for the energy which comes from the discovery of origins. The establishment of a new mother-daughter relationship means women's touching women, affirming the genuine bond among daughters, mothers, and grandmothers, challenging social taboos and the moral and religious traditions, listening to the inner voices which speak spiritual truth, whether of ancient goddesses or of other suppressed forces.