Al Ghamdi 1 Introduction One cannot imagine a separation between

Al Ghamdi 1
Introduction
One cannot imagine a separation between soul and body. These components, soul
and body, represent a spiritual and physical dependence; their bond is intangible but
indispensable. As a matter of fact, the soul is the controller while the body is its
follower, which obeys its commands and seeks its guidance.
So, they are
interdependent components. Those components are symbolized by a mother and her
adult daughter concerning their relationship. The daughter, who depends on her
mother, represents the body because the mother, regarding her age, has experienced
life thoroughly. It is a heavenly grace to observe and feel a similar dependence,
between the soul and body, among human beings, especially family members. The
relationship between the mother and her daughter displays the strongest familial bond.
Indeed, they are two of the four pillars to show a perfect family. The four pillars are
the parents and offspring of different gender, daughter and son. The mother-daughter
bond is the strongest and most flexible pillar because they form a true love and
friendship in a woman's life. Realistically, the mother is the source of love and
sacrifices. An online article, which is published in 1996, written by Linda Gordon
and Susan Shaffer sheds light on the family life. It asserts the bond of friendship
between the mother and her adult daughter:
Best friends may or may not continue to be best friends, but for better or worse, the
mother and daughter relationship is permanent. The mother and daughter relationship
is, therefore, more intimate and more intense than any other. The mother-daughter
relationship is so much more comprehensive than a best friendship. ("Can a Mother
Be Her Daughter's Best Friend")
Generally speaking, the daughter talks to her close friend freely about what she thinks
and feels rather than her mother. The mother tries to be the best friend to her daughter
Al Ghamdi 2
to present the intimate relationship between them, and the daughter, in return, respects
this bond by showing a mutual love and support to her best friend, the mother. So,
this article enhances a sense of hope for the mother and daughter; it proves the
possibility of friendship among the family members. It is an undeniable fact that the
mother-daughter friendship is permanent and irreplaceable. One can see an apparent
transformation from mother-daughter relationship to being best friends to each other.
So, a perfect mother-daughter relationship establishes a close companionship between
them. On the Web site Quote Yard, one Chinese proverb says that "one generation
plants the trees another gets the shade." This proverb presents the efforts of previous
generations to establish property and culture that are transmitted from generation to
generation, and the descendents can benefit from those efforts. It summarizes the true
love and sacrifices that are offered by the mother for her daughter. Also, the proverb
should be a motto of their relationship because the daughter can offer the same
sacrifices for her mother too. This responsibility towards each other can be satisfying
and close. As mentioned above, their relationship and friendship are mutual: both of
them have to share caring, loyalty, companionship, and respect.
This close relationship between the mother and her daughter refers to a possible
transformation.
As the daughter grows up, she realizes that her mother cannot
practice the role of a controller, or a person whose experience is more mature than her
daughter's. So, the daughter aims to enlighten her mother about the interests and
demands of her modern generation. As a result of that change, the mother-daughter
tie faces a hardship as well as do human relationships. They reach a situation that
motivates them to represent their own generations. In her book, Aging Mothers and
Their Adult Daughters (2001), Karen Fingerman comments on the gradual
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transformation in the mother-daughter tie.
She admits the emergence of this
developmental change:
The developmental [separation] is premised on the idea that problems arise because
parents and offspring have discrepant developmental needs. When individuals come
together in an intimate relationship, they bring their own goals and beliefs to that
relationship.… Their reactions may have an even greater impact on their
relationship…. People can do many things when they are upset with someone they
care about: yell, argue, hit, throw things, understand, or simply pretend the problem
does not exist. (79, 149, 95)
Fingerman's book focuses on aging mothers and their adult daughters. Fingerman
infers that conflict between them
throughout her personal study and other
researchers'. She asserts that their love and friendship are transformed into confusion
and disagreement because they have different demands and believe different things.
One can say it is the climax of the mother-daughter relationship. So, Fingerman
confirms the distinction between the mothers and their daughters concerning their
different perspectives on life.
Also, she reveals the reactions of them to that
difference: they "argue, throw things, or simply pretend the problem does not exist…"
(95). They react differently to prove the distinction between the mother and daughter.
Fingerman traces that development to admit the change within that relationship as
well as other relationships. Clearly, that change between mothers and their daughters
is the outcome of various common reasons.
The mother-daughter relationship demonstrates some factors that cause tension
between them. Some factors are prevalent and present the views of the mothers and
daughters towards them. In his book, Critical Insights: The Joy Luck Club (1998),
Robert C. Evans collects critical essays on Amy Tan's novel besides some academic
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articles presenting the real characteristics of the mother-daughter tie. One of those
essays, "Mothers and Daughters" (1997), proves that "the mother uses her experience
to control the daughter, but the daughter resists such control even if it is from her own
mother" (Ghymn 163).
This quote highlights two sides of that relationship: the
mother's authority over her daughter and the attitude of her daughter. On one hand,
the mother, the researcher analyzes, imposes her control over her daughter because
she seeks to practice her role as a mother and her experience is more mature than her
daughter's. In return, she wants her daughter to respect and obey this role. On the
other hand, the daughter cannot endure such control that restricts her activities and
interests. The mother and daughter have lost an intimate relationship. Esther Ghymn
aims to trace the developmental change in the mother-daughter bond; she seeks to
inspire her readers of a probable reason that threatens that relationship. Therefore, in
her essay (1997), she has quoted Helen Bannan's and Barker-Nunn's points of view
towards the mother's control over her daughter:
Immigrant women fight to survive and to preserve what they consider to be the
essence of their cultural origins. When the women of the second generation choose
American survival over ethnic tradition, they sometimes bring the war home, but they
are often following battle strategies for which their mothers have performed the
reconnaissance…. ("Mothers and Daughters" 164-65)
This excerpt reveals the emergence of conflict between the mothers and daughters.
Bannan and Nunn allude to a widespread reason that drives the mothers to practice
their control: it is immigration. The immigrant mothers are worried about the loss of
their ancestors' traditions and ethnic identity in a foreign country, and they expect a
gap between them and their daughters, so they impose those traditions on their
daughters. The daughters reject such traditions because they are different from their
Al Ghamdi 5
mothers and have contradictory personalities; they want their mothers to see them as
they are. Moreover, the writers anticipate the result of immigration: the daughters
struggle for independence because they are influenced by the lifestyle of foreign
people. Generally speaking, the modern generation admires the way foreign people
have lived; they realize that the age of modernity does not adapt the traditional
customs of their parents. Therefore, Ghymn does not ignore Simone de Beauvoir's
analysis of the mothers' motivations of such control besides immigration:
Real conflicts arise when the girl grows older; she wishes to establish her
independence from her mother. This seems to the mother a mark of hateful
ingratitude…. Whether a loving or a hostile mother, the independence of her daughter
dashes her hopes. She is jealous: of the world, which takes her daughter from her.
("Mothers and Daughters" 165)
So, Ghymn's study declares a new tendency the daughter seeks to trace: she is a
mature girl who has to live her own life without her mother's control. However, the
mother considers her daughter's independence and resistance as disobedience and
hateful feeling towards her. Also, Beauvoir presents a mother's psychological state
throughout this conflict: she envies the world that wins her daughter, it is the world of
people that influences her daughter and frees her from her mother's authority. Once
again, the daughters show an opposing attitude towards their mothers: they consider
the mothers' advice about the survival of traditions as a criticism because they feel
that their mothers constantly belittle the culture and concerns of the modern
generation. Fingerman, in her study, refers to that attitude of the daughters towards
such criticism.
She says, "years after daughters are grown, they feel guilty and
ashamed when their mothers criticize them and feel happy when their mothers are
proud of them…" (Aging Mothers and Their Adult Daughters 6). Criticism and praise
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have a great impact on a daughter's behaviors and reactions. The daughter perceives
that criticism is her mother's uppermost tendency towards the modern lifestyle and
beliefs. Fingerman repeatedly asserts that fact to present an obvious reason behind
the tension between the mothers and their daughters. It is a contemporary example
that is transmitted from generation to generation. The mothers and daughters become
incapable of understanding each other.
So, the previous consequences of that
hardship, the researcher infers, are considered as the earthquakes that cause chasm in
the earth's crust. The same chasm occurs between the mothers and daughters that
threatens their love and friendship.
One can say the mother-daughter tension is a contemporary and controversial issue
in a woman's life because it presents different tendencies and ideologies of traditional
mothers and modern daughters. The mothers and daughters are motivated to react
differently. Therefore, this study reveals the reasons of that tension between them and
traces a growing rift in the mother-daughter relationship. Also, the characterization of
the mothers and daughters are portrayed through analyzing those reasons. The study
of tension in the mother-daughter bond concentrates on two novels: The Joy Luck
Club (1989) by Amy Tan and Difficult Daughters (1998) by Manju Kapur.
Amy Tan is an Asian-American writer and a daughter to "Chinese immigrants
parents" (McCarthy, "Biography of Amy Tan" 9). The novel is divided into four
parts, each part subdivided into four sections. It is about four Chinese mothers, who
immigrate to the United States, and their four American-born daughters. The novel
sheds light on the influence of the mothers' past experiences upon the present
relationships with their daughters. It represents a real situation within a familial
institution that creates an intergenerational contrast between the mothers and
daughters.
Moreover, the novel presents a Chinese tradition that opposes an
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American culture. Living in America, the mothers face the conflicts between cultures
and lifestyle with their daughters. The mothers want to raise their daughters in the
traditional Chinese way. So, the mothers establish a club named joy luck club to
narrate their past experiences with their daughters to survive the old traditions. Each
woman, bothe mothers and daughters, shares stories about their lives and childhoods.
They try to communicate with each other, but misunderstanding widens the gap
between them.
The second novel, Difficult Daughters (1998), is written by an Indian novelist,
Manju Kapur. Kapur is born and raised in India, so she presents the Indian tradition
that contradicts the culture of Indian modern generation. This novel concentrates on
the Indian lifestyle and beliefs through the representative relationship between a
mother and her daughter. The main characters are the eldest daughter, Virmati, and
her mother, Kasturi. The title of the novel reveals the difficulty the mother and
daughter have faced to convince and interact with each other. The events of this
novel revolves around Virmati and her family. The mother and father oppose their
daughter's decision to complete her graduate study. They consider the BA enough for
the young girl. In addition, they entirely apply the traditions of ancestors to the
family, especially the eldest daughter, Virmati. Except her professor, her modern life
and beliefs are rejected by her family and relatives.
The novel is narrated by
Virmati’s daughter, Ida, who opens the novel with a harsh judgment on her mother’s
life: “the one thing [she has] wanted [is] not to be like [her] mother” (Kapur 1). So,
Kapur
attributes
difficulties
between
mothers
and
their
daughters
to
misunderstanding. Also, this study presents other writers' comments on those novels
to reveal different points of view that are similar to the topic of this paper.