Xinran Zhang

Xinran Zhang

25 October, 2024

Annie Ernaux, Postmodern feminism, Mother-daughter relationship, Non-linear narrative, Personal memory.

Annie Ernaux's works delve into the mother-daughter relationship from a postmodern feminist perspective, particularly in her novels "A Woman's Story", "I Can't Walk Out of My Night", and "The Long Years", showcasing the multiple dimensions of the mother-daughter relationship. Current research mostly focuses on traditional narrative structures, neglecting the role of postmodern narrative techniques in portraying mother-daughter relationships. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing Annie Ernaux's three novels and revealing how her non-linear narrative and fragmented-memory narrative techniques challenge traditional narrative patterns, revealing emotional entanglements, power struggles, and value differences between mother and daughter. In addition, the work emphasizes the profound influence of social and historical background on the mother-daughter relationship, and realistically reproduces the intimacy and conflict between mother and daughter through a simple and natural language style. Therefore, postmodern feminism not only redefines the expression of mother-daughter relationships, but also provides a new perspective for understanding female identity in modern society and a new theoretical framework for contemporary women's literature research.

© 2024, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license