The purpose of this thesis is to compare Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy within the framework of surrogate mother-daughter relationship in each novel. I regard the relationship between Lily Briscoe and Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse and the relationship between Lucy and Mariah in Lucy as a mother-daughter relationship. To clarify the distinction between the two novels, I focus on the ideological fantasy of maternity and the two protagonists’ establishing subjectivity.
Both authors deal with a male-dominated ideology that suppresses deviation from normative roles. Their similar views on motherhood are well represented in their novels. They consider maternity as an ideological fantasy, which is dismantled through the protagonists’ explorations of their identities. The protagonists, Lily and Lucy, mature as female artists by recognizing their fantasies toward their surrogate mothers.
In the second chapter, I use the Lacanian concept of fantasy to examine the idea of compulsory maternity as fantasy. The mothers perform their given role behind the veil of fantasy. Since the screen of ideological fantasy conceals this illusion, the women, who are the subject of fantasy, can hardly see this illusion for themselves. Lily and Lucy recognize their surrogate mothers are under pressure to be good women, wives, and mothers.
In the chapter three, I explore the ambivalence of a daughter’s desire for maternal empathy. Daughters often have contradictory feelings for their mother. As Nancy Chodorow points out, daughters are torn by the competing desires to unify with their mother and to establish independence from their mother. At first, Lily and Lucy also show their ambivalent desires for maternal empathy. However, the differences between their mothers and themselves make them aware of the impossibility of obtaining complete maternal empathy. They realize that they should overcome the desire for their mothers in order to gain their own identities.
The fourth chapter analyzes the process of traversing the fantasy and transference. Since Lily and Lucy discern the flaw in their ambivalent desires, their fantasies transfer to other pursuits. Lily concentrates on her painting and Lucy starts to learn photography. The artistic activities become new objects of fantasy for Lily and Lucy. By traversing their fantasy, their way to attain identity is changed.
Despite the differences of time, class, race, and means of overcoming fantasy, both novels derive the same basic conclusion for their protagonists. To acquire identity, it is important for Lily and Lucy to face the shortcomings of their fantasies of maternal empathy, and they must traverse the suppressed fantasy that conceals its own incompleteness.