The ambivalent Meaning of the Mother Image in The Bath by Yoko Tawada

Abstract

This article deals with the ambivalent meaning of the image of the mother in Das Bad by Yoko Tawada. I will interpret the image of the mother from both a sociological and a psychoanalytic perspective. On the one hand, Tawada criticizes the idealization of the selfless, self-sacrificing mother from a sociological perspective and unmasks the corresponding myth of everyday life. On the other hand, the symbiotic mother-child relationship is described as positive from a psychoanalytic perspective. The prenatal symbiosis between mother and child represents the permeable border and a hybrid, diverse identity. The maternal body, which is hidden in the ego as something heterogeneous and strange, appears in this novel as a uncanny, ghostly woman. As the narrator's alter ego, she can destroy the symbolic order and fixed identity. So the maternal body is not only abhorrent but also subversive. Finally, I will investigate the question of how the maternal body relates to the writing of Yoko Tawada and to the poetological meaning of the neologism 'Sprachmutter'.