The Relationship Between And Mother And Daughter English Literature Essay

The most intriguing and challenging relationship on the planet is the one of mother and daughter. It is no shock as to why. There are so many factors involved in this relationship. There is a special and unmistakable connection between mothers and daughters. When a baby girl is born, the mother has an immediate connection that transcends comprehension. She knows that child is the best pieces of her. This child is connected to her as if she were her soul mate. “so beautiful, rapturous , pregnant with their child. She told no one but she knew the baby was to be a girl. It would be herself again, reborn and this time perfect.” As this little girl grows up, the relationship gets complicated. Intense love and intense hatred surface.

Women are sociable. Talking about life’s problems comes easy to a young girl and her mother. She comes home from school and tells her Mommy about her day, her friends and her dreams. As she grows up she will go to her mother for advice about boys and have many laughs together. When she becomes a teen, mother daughter relationship can go one of two ways. One Is just as likely to happen as the other. Either the Mother and Daughter will come together emotionally and bond over life’s trials and tribulations. Or they’ll become adversaries, suddenly making the mother who loved and nurtured her daughter, who was once her best friend, suddenly arch-enemy number one. The Mothers desire to be her daughter’s best friend conflicts with her daughters need to be an individual.

Mrs. Dietrich is a divorcee mother that is yearning for meaning and love in her life. Nola is a young adult looking for independence and to feel like a grown woman. This is the theme throughout the story. “Nola saw Mrs. Dietrich watching her and walked away angrily and when Mrs. Dietrich caught up with her she said, “I can’t stand it, Mother.” Her voice was choked and harsh, a vein prominent in her forehead. “Let me go. For Christ’s sake will you let me go.” This relationship is a typical one of a seventeen year old girl and her mother, marked with the intensity only a teenage daughter can bring out of her mother . “As Nola glances up, startled, not prepared to see her mother in front of her, their eyes lock for an instant and Mrs. Dietrich stares at her with hatred. Cold calm clear unmistakeable hatred. She is thinking, Who are you? What have I to do with you? I don’t know you, I don’t love you, why should I?”

Teenage girls want their mother both close to them and far away emotionally, but they are not sure how to achieve this so they give mixed signals. The daughters push away and instinctively their mothers try to regain control of their connection by pursuing the emotional closeness. In the attempt to keep their relationship close, mothers tend to smother their teenage daughters. Mrs. Dietrich sees Nola as her only source of love so she tries to keep that alive, unbenonst to her she is smothering Nola with her overbearing need to feel attachment. “Sometimes in weak despondent moods, alone, lonely, self-pitying, when she has had too much to drink, Mrs. Dietrich thinks she is in love with her daughter.” Mrs. Dietrich is not her own woman. Her divorce, compounded by her loneliness and alcoholism forces her to need Nola in a way that is not healthy. She hides behind her daughter because she doenst know how to live anymore. She spent her whole life being needed, by her husband and her daughter, and now that she doesn’t feel needed she essentially is in crisis mode. As she tries to hold on to every little glance, every word and every breath her daughter takes, Nola asserts herself further from her grasp. “When Nola is away she seems to forget her mother entirely-doesn’t telephone, certainly does not write. It’s the way all their daughters are, Mrs. Dietrich’s friends tell her.”

Mrs. Dietrich’s divorce from Nola’s father is also a driving force behind each woman’s behavior.

“In theory, divorce need not mean disconnection. In reality, it often does. One large survey in the late 1980s found that about one in five divorced fathers had not seen his children in the past year, and less than half of divorced fathers saw their children more than several times a year. A 1981 survey of adolescents who were living apart from their fathers found that 52 percent had not seen them at all in more than a year; only 16 percent saw their fathers as often as once a week. Moreover, the survey showed fathers’ contact with their children dropping off sharply with the passage of time after the marital breakup.” (world without fathers)

  Once the oldest child hits adolescence, parents are catapulted into a process of life review. “Where have I been, where am I now, where am I going?” These questions gnaw at parents who observe their children at the brink of adulthood.

     It hits hardest the parent who is the same sex as the adolescent. Mothers and daughters actually have more difficulty than fathers and sons. In either case, the children tend to serve as a mirror of their younger lost selves, and bear the brunt of parents’ regrets as parents distance themselves. Among parents who have gone through a real divorce, the emotional divorce that occurs between adolescents and their parents can heighten difficulty. It may reawaken feelings of sadness. Parents who don’t have many interests outside the family are also vulnerable. Their kids are telling them to “Get a life!” –and that is exactly what they need to do.(adolencents whose hell is it)