Mothering and Daughterhood in Women’s Experimental Theatre. A Case Study

Authors

  • Andra Fermesanu “Petru Rareș” Secondary School, Hîrlău, Iași Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.69475/

Keywords:

mothering, motherhood, daughterhood, matrilineage, feminism, stereotypes

Abstract

Motherhood as experience or, simply, mothering was defined by Adrienne Rich in Of Woman Bornas the relationship between women and their potential motherhood, between mothers, collectively, between mothers and their children, or between mothers and nature. In short, mothering or motherhood as experience is defined as relationship, opposed to motherhood as institution that limits women’s creation and freedom. Moreover, mothering could be defined as recognition of the motherwork and as an experience that is defined by both positive and negative feelings that do not erase the mother’s identity and ego. The feminist experimental play chosen for analysis, Daughters (the first play from The Daughters Trilogy), written by Clare Coss, Roberta Sklar and Sondra Segal, mirrors the experience of motherhood / daughterhood by focusing on the need for closeness and separation in the mother – daughter  relationship as a universal characteristic that transcends race, gender, or background.

Author Biography

  • Andra Fermesanu, “Petru Rareș” Secondary School, Hîrlău, Iași

    Andra Crețu (Fermeșanu) has been teaching English for ten years. She holds a BA in English and Romanian Literature and a MA in American Cultural Studies. At present she is a 3rd year PhD Student at “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iași, doing her research on the topics of motherhood and mothering for her final paper: “Motherhood and Mothering Mirrored in Plays Written by White and African-American Women Playwrights”

     

References

Primary Sources

Coss, Clare, et al. “Daughters: Part I of the Daughters Cycle.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 24, no. 1, 1983, pp. 141–176. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25089405.

Secondary Sources

Anderson, Karen, Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation and Inspiration, USA: Mango Publishing Group, 2018.

Brunner, Cornelia, “Roberta Sklar: Toward Creating a Women’s Theatre”, in The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 24, No. 2, Women and Performance Issue (Jun., 1980), pp. 23-40.

Canning, Charlotte, Feminist Theatres in the USA: Staging Women’s Experience, London & New York: Routledge, 2005.

Case, Sue-Ellen, Feminism and Theatre, Palgrave Macmillan, 1988.

Chodorow, Nancy, The Reproduction of Mothering, University of California Press, 1978.

Ferrara-Mori, Gina, ed., From Pregnancy to Motherhood, New York & London: Routledge, 2015.

Lawler, Steph, Mothering the Self: Mothers, Daughters, Subjects, London & New York: Routledge, 2000.

Lichtenberg, Joseph, ed., Psychoanalytic Inquiry: Mothers and Daughters II, London & New York: Routledge, 2006.

Lowinsky, Naomi, “Mother of Mothers, Daughter of Daughters, Reflections on the Motherline”, in Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment and Transformation, ed. by Andrea O’Reilly and Sharon Abbey, New York, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000, books.google.com.

O’Reilly, Andrea, ed., Feminist Mothering, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008.

--------------------------, From Motherhood to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich’s ‘Of Woman Born’, Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2004.

--------------------------, “Mothers, Daughters, and Empowerment Agency”, in Canadian Woman Studies / Les Cahiers de la Femme, Vol. 18, No. 2 & 3, 1998, p. 16-21.

Porter, Marie, Patricia Short & Andrea O’Reilly, eds., Motherhood: Power and Oppression, Toronto: Women’s Press, 2005.

Rich, Adrienne, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1995.

Van Buren, Jane, Mothers and Daughters and the Origins of Female Subjectivity, London & New York: Routledge, 2007.

Wieland, Christina, The Undead Mother, London&New York: Karnac, 2000.

Published

16-07-2024

How to Cite

Mothering and Daughterhood in Women’s Experimental Theatre. A Case Study. (2024). RATE Issues, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.69475/