Mother-daughter Bond Research Articles

Psychological Perspective of Mother-Daughter Relationship in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

Toni Morrison delves deeply into history, culture, and human psychology in her novels, which go well beyond surface dynamics to examine the mother-daughter bond in great detail. Morrison's writing expertly explores the psychological elements that shape and define the relationship between mothers and daughters while also illuminating the bond between them through the careful weaving together of intricate events. Morrison focuses his examination on the idea of identity. She examines how women negotiate their identities in the face of family expectations, societal norms, and personal aspirations. Through the lives of her characters, Morrison illustrates the inner struggles that women experience as they attempt to strike a balance between the weight of their ancestors' past and their demand for personal liberty. Morrison uses parallelism between Beloved and Sethe frequently enough to make it hard for the reader to ignore their affection for one another and their mental relationship, which is, regrettably, the source of their conflict as mother and daughter. A further sign that the two do not understand each other's reasons for love and desertion is the difference between Beloved's recall that Sethe "left her" and Sethe's reminder to her that she "loves her."

The meaning of body and movement within the emotional world of a new mother: a case study

This article examines the roles of body and movement in the structuring of the mother’s perceptions of her relationship with her daughter and her inner world during the first postpartum year. Autoethnographic paradigm was used. The article depicts the process in which researcher-mother gathered movement materials using concepts of the Authentic Movement discipline; and writing materials gathered via associative and reflective writing. The focussing was given to internal factors, such as inner emotional dynamics of a mother that may affect motherhood experience. Materials were analysed using a qualitative method. The findings are described herein. The analysis of the materials reveals fundamental functions of the researcher-mother’s body: first, the described process aids in coping with stress and anxiety. Second, embodiment serves as a tool for forming a maternal caregiving style. Third, described process allows the experience of strengthening the mother–daughter bond. These findings are explained using various psychoanalytical theories and neurophysiological mechanisms.

Narrating the Final Loss: Scenes from the Maternal Deathbed in Gabrielle Roy's Le temps qui m'a manqué and Francine Noël's La femme de ma vie

Narrating the Final Loss:Scenes from the Maternal Deathbed in Gabrielle Roy's Le temps qui m'a manqué and Francine Noël's La femme de ma vie Julie Rodgers AS ADALGISA GIORGIO REMARKS in her introduction to Writing Mothers and Daughters, "the mother-daughter dyad is still the dominant structuring principle of female identity in Western cultures."1 Prominent feminist theorists such as Nancy Chodorow and Adrienne Rich have illustrated in great detail the impact of this unique female-to-female relationship on the daughter's psychological and sexual development and, moreover, her own relationship to motherhood.2 It is generally agreed, however, that far from being an unproblematic cathexis, the mother-daughter bond is wrenchingly complex, so much so that Phyllis Chesler has labeled it "woman's stormiest love affair."3 In the field of literary studies, proponents of écriture féminine such as Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous view maternal symbiosis as a core feature of the daughter's text.4 Indeed, so pervasive is the presence of the mother in the daughter's narrative that Marianne Hirsch has identified a distinct genre of matrilineal literature, namely "the mother-daughter plot,"5 in which the daughter, via writing, is always thinking back through the mother in some respect. Lori Saint-Martin develops this concept further, arguing that the relationship between mother and daughter must be viewed as a powerful dynamic "qui se trouve à la source même de l'écriture au féminin et qui surdétermine les structures narratives et même, dans une certaine mesure, le langage."6 For scholars of matrilineal literature, the daughter's text emerges as an important space for maternal reconciliation in the aftermath of a rupture from the mother.7 Unsurprisingly, then, a large body of mother-daughter writing is posthumous in nature (occurring after the mother's death) and characterized by a need, on the part of the daughter, to return to the mother and atone for previous conflicts. Indeed, according to Annick Houel, one could even argue that the mother's death is a necessary condition for reparative mother-daughter writing. In her essay on the death of the mother in women's writing in French, Houel observes that "les filles ne peuvent pas dire leur amour pour la mère que celle-ci une fois morte."8 In this respect, the maternal deathbed emerges as a pivotal incident in the daughterly text, serving both as a site of relational [End Page 40] renegotiation as well as a highly condensed metaphor for the fundamental mother-daughter anxieties. Judith Kegan Gardiner unpacks the rich symbolism of the maternal deathbed scene in women's writing, arguing that the dying mother often represents the oppressive aspects of institutional motherhood and 'traditional' womanhood that the daughter, quite literally, wishes to bury. Moreover, Kegan Gardiner highlights the mother's passing as a threshold moment that allows mother and daughter, perhaps for the first time "at least fleetingly to feel themselves […] as interdependent yet separate identities."9 It is widely agreed among grief scholars that, due to the unique and often intense nature of the mother-daughter bond, the death of the mother gives rise to a markedly distinct form of bereavement on the part of the daughter. For Moss et al., the daughter's grief for the mother remains largely transitional instead of ever reaching a point of resolution, with the emphasis on the need to maintain a continuing bond with the deceased mother.10 Similarly, Martha Robbins, in her study of bereaved daughters, argues that, in terms of the daughter's experience of grief, the actual physical death of the mother is eclipsed by a deeper sense of loss, that of the mother-daughter relationship itself.11 This loss, in turn, leads to an ongoing process of bereavement whereby the daughter becomes fixated on reconstructing the mother. Hope Edelman supports this view in her study of motherless daughters, arguing that, when a mother dies, a daughter's mourning never completely ends. The daughter's longing for the mother, she writes, never dissipates but, rather, "hovers at the edge of her awareness, ready to surface at any time, in any...

The Influence of Absent/Present Mothers on Daughters in Fadia Faqir’s My Name Is Salma and Willow Trees Don’t Weep

This study demonstrates the influence of absent/present mothers on their daughters in Jordanian-British Fadia Faqir’s novels My Name Is Salma (2007) and Willow Trees Don’t Weep (2014). It manifests the difference between the positive and negative impacts of the mothers of Salma and Najwa, the two heroines in the two novels under discussion, respectively. The study also exposes the difference between Salma and Najwa based on their fragmentation and its intricate interconnection with their mothers, the way they deal with their mothers’ belongings, and the effect of the memories of their mothers on their self-formation. As it does so, the study highlights how each one of these heroines utilizes her mother’s influence on her to achieve self-formation in her own way as she crosses borders. Through its focus on the mother-daughter bond in both novels, the study concludes that despite the mother’s physical absence, her evident presence turns out to be inescapable; the positive influence of Salma’s absent mother helps Salma recollect herself, and the negative influence of Najwa’s absent mother helps Najwa shape her new identity.

Revisiting Demeter and Persephone Paper B - Revisiting Persephone: towards reconceptualising female subjectivity and erotics

In Paper B, we focus on the figure of Persephone in the myth, as the daughter, but also, as “the silent object of desire” of male imagination. We question whether Persephone’s forceful abduction is a representation of the emergence of female sexuality, as it has often been argued within psychoanalysis (Chodorow, 2012), or in fact, a symbolic representation of female subordination and objectification. We discuss a clinical vignette illustrating how a mother who is unable to face up to her own and her daughter’s vulnerability, unlike Demeter, can result in a daughter who is unable to protect herself from violation, and who cannot find her way up from the underworld so to speak. We then discuss the film, The Handmaiden, where the question of mother–daughter separation is a central theme. We argue that a strong mother–daughter bond is in fact central to the ability of women to find a healthy place for sexual desire and a close relationship in adult life, and that the nature of the mother–daughter bond is such that both mother and daughter seek out each other’s love and care throughout the lifespan.

Awakening of Female Consciousness in <i>The Joy Luck Club</i>: An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan as Two Illustrations

Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, with the awakening of women’s self-consciousness as one of its themes, revolves around the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four American-born daughters. Taking An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan in The Joy Luck Club as two illustrations, this paper aims to explore the internal and external causes leading to their awakening. After analyzing the embodiment of the female consciousness in these two characters, this paper points out that the internal factors involve their traits and personalities and the external factors deal with their mother-daughter bond and the differences between Chinese and American culture: An-mei, encouraged by her mother’s silent rebellion against Chinese feudal patriarchal society, eventually achieves self-discovery and independence by struggling out of the dilemma and immigrating to America; Rose, a second-generation immigrant, keeps seeking for her own identity while facing both the racial and gender discrimination from American society and, with the help of her mother, succeeds in seizing the power of discourse in her marriage and in shaping her independent personality.

Through the mother's voice: Exposure and intimacy in Lesley McIntyre's photo project The Time of Her Life and Elisabeth Zahnd Legnazzi's Chiara A Journey Into Light.

When it comes to depicting ill or disabled children, the ethics of representation becomes increasingly complex. The perception of photographs as voyeuristic and objectifying is of particular concern here and resonates with widespread fear about the eroticisation, mistreatment and exploitation of children. Although these fears are reasonable, this view does not take into account the voice and agenda of the photographic subject, disregards the possibility of recognition and the participatory nature of photography. In this article, I focus on photography as a collaborative practice. I analyse two photographic projects by photographers/mothers that document their ill and dying daughters - Lesley McIntyre's photographic essay The Time of Her Life (2004) and Elisabeth Zahnd Legnazzi's Chiara A Journey Into Light (2009). Illness in these projects is not experienced in isolation. Instead, the photographs and accompanying texts provide a space to engage in a dialogue which is built on the interdependency of all the participants of the photographic act - the photographer, the subject of the photograph and the viewer. My aim is to question how these projects construct experiences and articulate private expressions of illness and how the photographs enhance and/or challenge the mother-daughter bond. Alan Radley's critical analysis of representations of illness, Emmanuel Lévinas's and Maurice Blanchot's perspectives on ethical philosophy and visual social semiotics approach developed by Kress and Van Leeuwen provide a guiding framework for this study.

Investigação dos padrões relacionais do vínculo mãe-filha envolvidos na obesidade feminina

Introdução: A obesidade apresenta uma incidência elevada e gênese multifatorial, como fatores biológicos, ambientais e psicológicos. Dentre os psicológicos, os conflitos na relação mãe-filha podem contribuir para a gênese da obesidade feminina. Objetivo: O objetivo desse estudo é investigar os padrões relacionais do vínculo mãe-filha envolvidos na obesidade feminina. Materiais e Métodos: Foi realizado estudo transversal, qualitativo, com pacientes obesas do Programa de Cirurgia Bariátrica de um Hospital Escola do Sul de Minas Gerais. Todas possuíam IMC acima de 30kg/m2 e eram maiores de 18 anos. A determinação da amostra foi de 12 pacientes, número suficiente para se atingir a saturação (Field Methods). Foram realizadas as entrevistas não-diretivas, gravadas e transcritas para análise posterior segundo a Metodologia de Análise de Conteúdo de Bardin. Resultados e Discussão: Foram encontradas seis temáticas centrais relacionadas à influência do vínculo mãe-filha sobre a obesidade feminina: comida/fuga/prazer; ganho de peso após a gravidez; superproteção/dominação materna; abandono materno; abuso sexual; insegurança/baixa autoestima/depressão. Conclusão: Foi possível evidenciar uma relação entre conflitos na relação mãe-filha e condições para a gênese da obesidade.

Elders Need Special Attention When Adult Children Die

Elders Need Special Attention When Adult Children Die

“And the One Doesn’t Stir without the Other’’: Mother-Daughter Relationships in Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother and Hanan Al- Shaykh’s The Locust and the Bird: My Mother’s Story

The mother-daughter relationship is the most crucial human rapport. Western and Arab theorists have dealt profusely with this close female bond that persists as a determining force of personality structure and social system. Adrienne Rich (1986) and Nancy Chodorow (1978b ) undertake an analysis of the institution of motherhood in the context of western patriarchal society. In the Arab world, major studies of this theme such as Suad Joseph and Dalya Abudi’s works deal with the mother-daughter bond as culturally specific. This study attempts a psychoanalytic and feminist analysis of this “great unwritten story” where the two disciplines engage and enrich each other. This will be explored in ‘the life writings’ of Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother, and Hanan Al- Shaykh’s The Locust and the Bird: My Mother’s Story in which the mother-daughter relationship is the core concern. Kincaid and Al- Shaykh’s works contextualize what Rich (1986) calls “the essential female tragedy” portraying “the loss of the daughter to the mother, the mother to the daughter” and how this is articulated through genre choice, language, and colonial/patriarchal oppression. The study will also investigate the auto biographical nature of both texts.

“Break and Be Broken”, She Said, “That is the Law of Life”: Loss and Racial Melancholia in Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat

SummaryYvette Christiansë (2003: 373) argues that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission neglected daily narratives of loss in favour of an attempt of a nationwide process of mourning and a subsequent closure of the apartheid past. One account of quotidian losses certainly is Marlene van Niekerk’s novel Agaat (2004), which focuses on the relationship between the white farm owner Milla and her coloured servant Agaat. Throughout the story, Milla attempts to turn Agaat into a “refined” coloured, maintain control over her body and sexuality. This alienation leads to losses on Milla’s part, especially the emotional loss of a potential mother-daughter bond. Because the story is told from Milla’s perspective, Agaat’s voice is largely silenced. It has often been noted that Agaat uses mimicry in order to subvert Milla’s rule. However, critics have largely overlooked Agaat’s discriminatory behaviour towards the other coloured farm workers. By drawing on Anne Cheng’s concept of racial melancholia, I argue that this behaviour can be seen as Agaat’s attempt of melancholically repressing a part of her coloured identity which she has to negate in order to gain acceptance by Milla. The latter’s melancholia manifests through the incorporation of Agaat as her lost object of love and the simultaneous rejection of Agaat’s racialised body.

A Qualitative Study of the Black Mother-Daughter Relationship

The mother-daughter bond is a complex, diverse, lifelong, intimate connection that significantly affects development. While studies of intergenerational relations during old age have increased, as have those examining the mother-daughter relationship during adolescence, particularly those among Black and Latina pairs, only a few have examined adult mother-daughter relationships among African Americans. Only a few studies have examined the influence Black mothers have on their daughters’ development. Using Black feminist thought as a theoret alical model, this article reports findings from a qualitative study that explored Black adult daughters’ perceptions of the impact their mothers had on the development of their self-worth/self-esteem, resilience, and coping strategies. Seventeen Black mothers and daughters described the lessons they learned and the forms in which these lessons were conveyed from their mothers. Implications of the findings for future research are drawn.

Un/Natural Motherhood in Marina Carr’s The Mai, Portia Couglan, and By the Bog of Cats . . .

Un/Natural Motherhood in Marina Carr’s The Mai, Portia Couglan, and By the Bog of Cats . . . Karin Maresh (bio) I don’t think the world should assume that we are all natural mothers. And it does. . . . The relationship between parent and child is so difficult and so complex. There’s every emotion there. We mostly only acknowledge the good ones. If we were allowed to talk about the other ones, maybe it would alleviate them in some way. MARINA CARR As Karen Bamford and Sheila Rabillard note in their introduction to this collection of essays, the mother-daughter bond that was deemed “too difficult” to stage by women playwrights at the height of second-wave feminism in the 1980s has become more common in the plays of the past quarter century.1 This is especially true of Irish drama, most notably through the work of Marina Carr. The mothers in Carr’s plays remain as depressed and tormented as their predecessors; however, they suffer for different reasons. Whereas the mothers of early-twentieth-century Irish drama suffered the deaths of their children, often to the nationalist cause, the mothers in Carr’s plays suffer because they defy the core concepts of essential motherhood that have defined motherhood in Ireland for so long. They are selfish, rather than self-less; they are often ambivalent about rather than accepting of motherhood and marriage; they are openly sexual rather than chaste; they are damaged from maternal abuse or neglect; and they harbor violent tendencies that result in abuse, suicides, and filicide. [End Page 179] In short, the women of Carr’s The Mai (1994), Portia Coughlan (1996), and By the Bog of Cats . . . (1998) are “unnatural” mothers who suffer because they are women for whom the ability to mother does not come naturally, or because they mother their children in ways that contradict the patriarchal model of essential motherhood entrenched in Irish culture. Self-sacrificing mothers, whose needs and desires are always secondary to those of their children and any male characters, can be found in numerous Irish plays of the early twentieth century. Often these women are depicted as suffering martyrs, or “Moaning Mammies,” as defined by Áine McCarthy in her study of Irish mothers in twentieth-century Irish fiction (97).2 For example, J. M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea (1904) depicts a mother of the Aran Islands who loses all six of her sons to the treacherous sea. In the end, she is left, along with her two daughters, to keen for her sons: “They’re all gone now, and there isn’t anything more the sea can do to me.”3 In Lady Augusta Gregory’s Gaol Gate (1906) a mother mourns the death of her son wrongly accused by the state, and, calling upon nationalistic stirrings, declares her son’s baby boy lucky in being able to boast of such an honorable father who remained loyal to his countrymen even in the face of death. The suffering, self-sacrificing mother is also represented in Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock (1924) through the characters of Juno and Mrs. Tancred. Both women lose their sons to the Irish Civil War, and the saintly Juno endures the antics of her drunkard husband and the unplanned pregnancy of her unwed daughter. The mothers in these plays are devoted to their children—especially their sons—and do not question their essential categorization as woman/mother. They are mothers first and individuals second. In fact, mothers present in much of twentieth-century Irish drama, with only a few exceptions, are, as Diane Stubbings argues, “merely apparent” and contained within the male character(s)’ story.4 This reflection of the social positioning for women in Irish society—women who are “rendered invisible, or when visible . . . [are] seen one-dimensionally,”5 as Patricia Kennedy notes in Maternity in Ireland—continues in Irish drama through most of the century. They are characters who are the result of the idealization of motherhood by the Catholic Church in Ireland, especially during the mid-twentieth century when, according to Clare O’Hagan, the Church urged women to act “as patriarchal gatekeepers, promoting motherhood and family...

Angels or Monsters? Motherhood in the Dystopian World of Paloma Díaz-Mas’s “La niña sin alas”

Abstract This essay examines two contrasting models of motherhood in Paloma Díaz-Mas’s short story "La niña sin alas" (1996). In this futuristic story, human beings have evolved wings, and those who are born without them or lose them are considered mutilated humans. The story appears to be divided in two parts. In the first, the protagonist gives birth to a handicapped (wingless) daughter, then opts to give up her own perfectly functional wings in order to nurture the child, compromising her marriage, giving up her job and abandoning any hope of social connections. When the child begins to grow wings around the age of two, the mother first tries to inhibit their growth by tightly bandaging the child’s back, then bites them, supposedly so as to keep her daughter exclusively dependent on her. After reviewing mother archetypes and stereotypes in modern and contemporary Spanish literature, this essay examines the story’s ambivalence towards what appear to be two extreme types of motherhood: the mother who is willing to sacrifice her wellbeing, her independence and her place in the community in order to protect her handicapped child, and the castrating mother willing to mutilate her daughter to keep the girl from any chance of an independent future. The essay engages Kristeva’s theorization of the mother-child relationship as well as Adrienne Rich’s evocative reflections on the mother-daughter bond.

Five women’s recollections and reflections on being raised by a mother with psychosis

This qualitative research project explored the recollections and reflections of women who were raised by mothers suffering with psychosis. Existing research has documented the mostly negative effects of maternal psychopathology on offspring; they are exposed to both the genetic and environmental effects of such illness. Very few qualitative studies exist in this research area. The mother–daughter perspective was taken to explore the ways that daughters felt maternal psychosis might have affected this primary relationship. Five participants comprised the purposive, snowball sample. The semi-structured interview method was used for data collection. The data was analysed using thematic content analysis. Nine themes and two sub-themes emerged from the interview data; these were (1) resilience and survival (with two sub-themes: (1.1) extreme self-sufficiency and (1.2) low self-esteem and the need for approval); (2) memories of maternal psychotic episodes; (3) mother–daughter bond; (4) importance of father; (5) sibling sounding boards and responsibilities; (6) silent family storms; (7) significant others; (8) stigma, shame, and secrecy; and (9) maternal psychosis, motherhood, and feminine identity. All participants believe that maternal psychosis had affected them profoundly, both in childhood and adulthood. They felt that it had influenced their personality development in various ways, including the formation of feminine identity.

Mothers’ and Daughters’ Memories: The Palimpsest and Women’s Writing during the Algerian Civil War

Max Silverman’s Palimpsestic Memory describes a “transgenerational voice of memory” which may emerge from diverse histories of victimisation. This article will seek to expand upon how this “transgenerational voice” is significant within manifold cultural contexts through examining how the mother-daughter relationship is becoming increasingly prominent within recent Francophone women’s literature from Algeria. Within the fiction which reflects upon the destruction wrought by the Algeria’s civil crisis (c. 1992-1998), the mother-daughter bond connects women’s suffering during this “black decade” with the preceding War of Independence (1956-1962). Female protagonists in literary works by authors including Malika Mokeddem and Leila Marouane are inspired to challenge and resist civil upheaval and violence through recollecting and celebrating their mothers’ earlier resistance during the War of Independence. Presenting Mokeddem’s Of Dreams and Assassins and Marouane’s The Abductor as key texts, this article considers how the mother-daughter bond emerges as a literary theme which, through exemplifying the transnational emphasis on the associations between distinct atrocities, draws attention to female suffering within both Algerian wars, developing a productive and intercultural consciousness of female-specific suffering within multiple historical traumas.

Bridging divides: Transference in the work of Lynne Heller

Abstract This article discusses the work of Canadian artist Lynne Heller, specifically her project The Adventures of Nar Duell in Second Life begun in 2007. It examines her use of computational arts to blur distinctions between artistic media through the creation of digital and material composites in both physical and virtual spaces. Heller’s performances, which involve creating and navigating an avatar in Second Life, become material for her comic books and immersive, multimedia art installations. Moving in and out of formats, Heller bridges physical and alternative spaces and identities. An interview with the artist details the development of her multifaceted project and aesthetic complexity, particularly her artistic strategies and the ideas that inform her work, such as transference and the relationship with her avatar described as a mother-daughter bond. This article considers the implications of crafting within the virtual, and addresses aspects of materiality within these spaces, as well as modes of viewing, interaction and collaboration.

The self under siege: a therapeutic model for differentiation

Introduction. A Developmental Perspective. The Voice. Voice Therapy. Relationships. Voice Therapy Applied to Couple Relationships. Family Dynamics that Affect Differentiation. The Mother-Daughter Bond [and Differentiation]. Death Anxiety and Differentiation. Cultural and Social Factors that Impact Differentiation. Leadership, Power, and Differentiation. The Differentiated Person.

Early Motherhood and the Disruption in Significant Attachments

Based on a qualitative study of 48 teenage mothers living in the Denver metropolitan area, this research examines the loss of multiple attachments, including mothers, siblings, and other extended family members and friends, among African American and Latina girls who become young mothers. Through life history narratives, this article explores the isolating effects of teen motherhood on the relational world of young mothers and the transition to “forced autonomy” that emerges out of the relationship strains in the teen mothers’ lives. Faced with ruptures in significant childhood attachments and strains in the mother–daughter bond, young mothers develop strategies of accommodation to cope with the disruptions to connectivity and the demands of forced autonomy that are the result of early motherhood. These findings are interpreted through the frame of self-in-relation theory as this theoretical perspective has been informed by the scholarship on race and ethnicity. In reengaging the discourse on race, class, and gender, our findings contribute to the field in a number of significant and related ways: first, through an investigation into relationship loss and repair among teen mothers; second, by addressing the conditions under which teen mothers gain acceptance in their families; and third, in applying self-in-relation theory to the experience of adolescent girls of color whose relational lives are disrupted by the stigma and adversity of teen motherhood.

Augusta Webster Writing Motherhood in the Dramatic Monologue and the Sonnet Sequence

In many respects, recovery of Augusta Webster may be read as a feminist success story with a now familiar plot. Literary scholars of early- to mid-nineties seized on Webster's powerful dramatic monologues for their cultural and social significance, focusing particularly on her ideological engagement with urgent mid- to late-Victorian social questions related to female sexuality. More recent work has explored her closet dramas, literary reviews, publishing history, and biography. Safely enshrined in anthologies for past decade, Webster's frequent appearances in dissertations, journal articles, and books not only reveals impact of Victorian women's poetry on canon formation, but also ongoing relevance of central feminist questions about literary authority and women's writing. The critical awareness of and interest in Webster's writing might be read as evidence that recovery has done its work, and, as Margaret Russett observes, that gender studies have long since moved beyond reclamation (1) Yet scholarship on Webster's poetry also reveals ways in which literary scholars still struggle with some of same questions that faced feminist scholars thirty years ago. Although we have moved past basic debates over whether or not women authors should be studied at all, study of nineteenth-century women's poetry is still in a powerful transitional phase. As Alison Chapman remarks, the critical effects of recovery of forgotten voices are still making their mark and work of uncovering women's poetry is by no means completed. (2) In what follows, I will suggest a reading of Webster that I hope reveals not only how her work enriches our understanding of nineteenth-century poetry, but also illuminates some of challenges scholars continue to grapple with as they recover lost writers. I will focus on Webster's representation of motherhood. While her entire canon lies outside my scope here, I have chosen to concentrate on two works that I believe serve as touchstone pieces for Webster's interest in relation between maternity and literary creativity: Medea in Athens, a dramatic monologue from her most famous collection of monologues, Portraits (1870), and Mother and Daughter: An Uncompleted Sonnet Sequence (1895), a collection of posthumously published sonnets. Both works offer a complex and equivocal answer to question of whether or not motherhood enhances or undermines a woman writer's poetic authority. I argue that these texts attempt to demonstrate that motherhood can be an important source of creative inspiration for women, but literary forms in which Webster chooses to work--monologue and sonnet--also voice ambivalence about this idea. In Portraits, dramatic monologue performs maternal creativity only by showing impact of its loss, while Mother and Daughter questions sonnet's efficacy to represent mother-daughter bond even as it engages form. Indeed, Webster's sonnet sequence in particular, with its provocative portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship and a mysterious publishing history which suggests that Webster's male editors may have been responsible for its final form, might be seen as haunted by a ghostly matriarchal line that comes to fruition only through disavowal of poetic language and a (possible) abandonment of very tradition it attempts. My argument obviously owes much to legacy of second-wave feminism and critical engagement with motherhood and women's writing inspired decades ago by Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born or French feminism as represented by Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and particularly Julia Kristeva. But by taking a close look at both Medea in Athens and Mother and Daughter, I hope my investigation occasions close readings that bring recovery work into a larger conversation with rejuvenation of formalism. The initial recovery work of women poets tended to focus on social context and cultural representations of identity, particularly ways in which these writers engaged progressively with important political and social questions. …