Psychodynamics of Mother Daughter Relationship: Degrees of Deprivation, Oppression and Dispossession in Doris Lessing’s Fiction

The aim of this study is to explore how Doris Lessing‟s works disclosein prominence the power dynamics of the conflicted and struggling relationship of mother and daughter, the paradigm of mother daughter relationship and its psychodynamics including explanations about the developmental stages of the relationship between the mother and the daughter, human behavior of the two in the context of relationship formation and maintenance, psychopathology where the daughter feels isolated and the psychoanalytic dimensions of treatment of this particular relationship, primarily in the world of psychoanalytic and feminist literary history. Resultantly, it has been unfolded that the phenomenon of mother daughter relation holds immense complexity and layers of intricacies in the feminist discourses where the presence of a mother figure has been deconstructed both thematically and stylistically as evident in Greek plays. Mother daughter relation has always enjoyed being of significance, at times appearing titled as „Electra Complex‟ after Sophocles‟ Electra while at others emerging out as the phenomenon of „Matrophobia‟ as titled by Sukenick and carried on further by second wave of feminists (Hallstein 8).