Aggression, Transgression And Regression

Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), one of the dominant contemporary American writers, portrays a variety of thematic mother-daughter relationship. This thesis takes a close examination of her three novels:them(1969) written in her early years, You Must Remember This(1987) which stands for her writing vision in the middle years, and I'll Take You There(2002) representing her latest literary view in the new era. Through analyzing the theme of mother-daughter relationship with reference to the theoretical discourse of feminism and object-relations theory, the thesis concentrates on mother-daughter aggression, the daughters' turning to father figures, and the regression to mother-daughter bond, with the aim of indicating Oates's development of feminist consciousness, thereby reasonably reconsidering and foreseeing female writing."Introduction" surveys the critical reception of her work both in the United States and in China and offers the methodology and significance of the thesis. Chapter one gives a review of two American feminists' works on mother-daughter relationship, namely Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born and Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction of Mothering. In addition, object-relations theory is also applied to indicating the inner psychological causes of the complicated fluctuation of mother-daughter relationship in Oates's fiction. Chapter Two examines Oates's portrayals of women, mothers and daughters in specific and womanhood in general. Chapter Three focuses on the interpretation of her daughters' psychological turn to their father figures when they attempts to get rid of their mother's restrictions to search for their own lives. Chapter Four argues that after personally experiencing trauma with father figures in the patriarchal society, daughters reconnect their mothers, re-identify their fate and empower themselves within the scope of woman-to-woman bond.In the part of "Conclusion", it points out how Oates's feminist consciousness in her works has been improved. It is stressed that similarities and differences of the three novels point to Oates's development in feminism. Along with her developing feminist consciousness, the matrileague discourse in her fiction initiates her writing features during her chronological phases of writing. Hence, Oates contributes a great deal to the establishment of advanced woman-to-woman bond and the enlightenment for current female writing.