Philippine E-Journals

Vicarious Lives: The Controlling Mother in Philippine and Japanese Fiction

Hope Sabanpan-yu

Discipline: Literature

 

Abstract:

This paper focuses on works that highlight the "vicarious mother”. The female protagonists in the texts under consideration manipulate their children to carry out their selfish plans to achieve their own goals within the patriarchal dominance. Enchi‘s A Tale of False Fortunes and Masks together with Hirabayashi‘s “A Woman to Call Mother,” Montaire‘s Ikaduhang Sugo and Espina-Moore‘s Inahan ni Mila are five of the most representative works that narrate this kind of maternal control. These works are extremely complex, multi-layered novels exploring exploitation of children by mothers.