The Gothic Mother-Daughter Relationship in Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle, Toni Morrison's Beloved and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects

Abstract

My analysis will cover, in the context of the Gothic, the topic of narrative techniques in the mentioned works, the complex psychological background of the relationship between mothers and daughters, the climactic phase of the weird relationship when psychological struggle deepens into physical violence and finally the function of other women who influence the central relation between mother and daughter, in the characters of sister and a surrogate mother. Throughout the discussion I am going to focus on the problematic mother-daughter relationship as the root of the motivating force of the plot and the lives of women characters in the novels.