An Examination Of Mother-Daughter Relationship Patterns In Contemporary Chinese Female Literature

In the past two decades,mother-daughter relationships have been one of the important themes in Chinese female literature.This article summarises four different modes of mother-daughter relationships,namely intergenerational dialogue in social mobility,fertility order in underclass life,female identity in kinship crisis,and the dilemma of self-knowledge in growth narratives.These novels about mother-daughter relationships reflect a strong feminine consciousness and concern for women’s state of existence,spirit and mind.In addition,the author also interprets the novels she has written in terms of dramatic narratives,memory and trauma.Examining these contemporary female novels in relation to literary history and other works of art helps,on the one hand,to provide an understanding of how these novels have become a window through which people view Chinese mothers and daughters,families and society.On the one hand these works,by entering into dialogue with readers in the public sphere,can also contribute to a better understanding of the plight of contemporary women within patriarchal ideologies,and thus contribute to their emancipation.