Is It Really Mommie Dearest?: Daughter-Mother Narratives in Young Adult Fiction

In this study, feminist theories and insights from new discourses on female adolescence are employed in analyzing the discourses and cultural scripts used in telling stories about the relationship between teenage daughters and mothers in young adult novels and in short stories. The stories examined in this book were marketed for young adults and published between 1965 and 1998. Included are daughter-mother narratives, African-American young adult novels, and narratives set in other cultural contexts.
The daughter-mother narratives are examined in relation to Freudian and feminist theories of female adolescent development and in relation to feminist theories pertinent to the mother-daughter relationship, including black feminist criticism. Topics include the fairy tale daughter-mother narrative in re-tellings of Rapunzel and Snow White and generational stories of daughters and mothers. Also discussed are the range of issues raised in daughter-mother narratives that are highly significant to the lives of today’s daughters: debates about the responsibilities of mothering, choices made between career and raising families, abortion rights versus the right to life, and topics relating to sexuality, gender, and body image. The implications of this study for those who work with young people and their literature are also discussed.