Harmony And Antagonism: The Mother-Daughter Relationship In American Young Adult Novels

As is known to all, the mother-daughter relationship is the most formative relationship in the life of every woman. The different experiences of being a daughter and the mother of a daughter have been so much a part of every woman's family life. The relationship also has a great effect on the psychological development of an adolescent girl. During adolescence, an important turning point of life, young adults strengthen their self-consciousness and have a stronger sense of independence and sense of being adults in addition to their rapid physical changes. Especially adolescent girls have such rich and strong emotion that they do not like to be protected and interfered and want to be independent and to break away from dependence on their mothers. Therefore, it is very important for an adolescent girl's growth to have a harmonious mother-daughter relationship.Since the emergence of young adult literature as a genre of literature, not many works take the mother-daughter relationship as a topic. So the serious treatment of this relationship was called one of the "literary gaps" in literature because of the literary convention of absenting parents. From the 1960s and 1970s, the topic began to draw the attention of many excellent writers. Among these writers, Norma Klein, Katherine Paterson, M. E. Kerr, and Paul Zindel respectively depict the psychological growth of an adolescent girl in the harmonious or antagonistic mother-daughter relationship in their works.This paper will analyze the mother-daughter relationship and the psychological growth of adolescent girls affected by the relationship in the four young adult novels. The characteristics of the harmonious and antagonistic mother-daughter relationships will be analyzed and compared in order to understand better the girls' psychological changes. In the process of daughters' growth, mothers should change as well so as to establish a close and harmonious mother-daughter relationship and to promote the healthy and normal growth of adolescent girls.The thesis is divided into four parts:Introduction introduces the significance of the mother-daughter relationship in adolescent girls' growth and the works about the relationship in American young adult literature.Chapter One "Understanding and Harmony" introduces Norma Klein and Katherine Paterson, focuses on the harmonious mother-daughter relationship in their works Mom, the Wolf Man and Me and The Great Gilly Hopkins, and summarizes the characteristics of the relationship and the positive influence of it on girls' healthy growth.Chapter Two "Depression and Anger" introduces M. E. Kerr and Paul Zindel and comments on the antagonistic mother-daughter relationship in their novels Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack and The Pigman and the characteristics and negative influence of the relationship on the psychological growth of adolescent girls.Conclusion puts forward the idea that understanding and communication, mutual respect and trust are the best ways to establish the friendly relationship between mothers and daughters;meanwhile parents and society should show more concern for the adolescent girls' growth.