The Primal Pain of Mothers in Joy Luck Club and Saving Face

Abstract

Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born (1976) has made a huge influence on the feminist studies of motherhood for the past thirty years. Due to Rich's insight, they could separate motherhood as an ideology from mothering as an experience and examine the oppressive aspects of a mother's existence in a patriarchal society. Especially, Rich's conception of the primal pain of mothers allowed them to look into mothers' depression and feeling of alienation from a fresh point of view. Therefore, this essay takes up Rich's theoretical position as a main discursive frame and tries to analyze Chinese mothers' pain represented in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club and Alice Wu''s Saving Face. By looking into various representations of mothers, this essay ultimately suggests the persistent relevance of Rich's discursive insight on the issue of motherhood and mothering.