QUESTS FOR FEMALE GENEALOGIES IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S WRITING
QUESTS FOR FEMALE GENEALOGIES IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S WRITING

Summary/Abstract: Drawing upon feminist scholarship and the notion of motherlines in contemporary Western cultures, with a particular emphasis on literary representations of (non)-biological matrilineages and their historical and present (dis)continuities, the paper attempts to offer an insight into the feminine subject’s achieving agency through restoring female genealogies and claiming their power and authority within patriarchal social contexts. In order to illustrate a number of concepts related to what Maglin and other theorists and critics understand as matrilineal literature, the paper examines the conventions and complexities of mother-daughter relations, juxtaposing two contemporary novels preoccupied with the psychology of women’s bonding through therapist-patient mothering and maternal guilt (A. M. Homes: In a Country of Mothers, 2006) and the scholarly explorations into the significance and social positions of female ancestors (M. Forster: Isa & May, 2011). By delving into the nature, synchronicity, and transgressiveness of their respective mother-daughter quests, the paper investigates whether and to what extent these two novels classify as matrilineal literature, and in what ways contemporary representations of women characters challenge traditional attitudes towards the social significance of female genealogies.

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