earticle

영어

This paper aims to examine the relationship of mother-son in “The Grandmothers” in light of Erich Neumann’s theory of the terrible mother and their son-lover. The terrible mother acts as a good mother when the son-lover is weak and dependent on her, but starts to show her antagonism against the son-lover who tries to be independent since the son-lover has his nature that he has to differentiate himself from the mother. Sometimes the son-lover can be manifest as a struggler or a man-killer who is under the control of the mother and at the same time as her destructive consort. These images are in parallel with the developmental process toward centroversion, which can be explained as self-realization. The forbidden relationship between mothers and her best friend’s only sons in “Grandmothers” is closely related to the absence of fathers in the family. Fathers or husbands are fleeting, which causes their sons to be fixated upon their mothers who block the sons’ psychological development. This brings to mind Lessing’s complicated relationship with her parents, in particular, her father who used to suffer from depression and anger with his amputated leg after World War Ⅰ. He was like a sort of shadow in the family until his death. Therefore, such absence of fatherhood is repeatedly reflected in the negative images of fathers in “Grandmothers,” including her other novels.