The Beauty Queen Of Leenane Analysis

Mother-daughter relationships have always been considered important, because of the bond between being females, and additionally sometimes being the only females within a family. Other times, mother-daughter relationships stem in hatred, because of the power struggle between the mother and daughter. In particular, Mag and Maureen in The Beauty Queen of Leenane, have a very complex relationship that ultimately stems from hatred for each other. While there are hints of why they do not have a healthy mother daughter bond, there is no clear answer as to why their relationship has become so negative. One of the biggest theorists in relationships among family members is Sigmund Freud, who theorized the pre-Oedipus and Oedipus complex, where daughters

One of his most notable theories was the Oedipus theory, where he believed that a child wanted to have a strong relationship with the parent of the opposite sex, so they started to gain a hatred towards their parent of the opposite sex. This theory was mostly used towards son’s and their attraction towards their mother. Over time, they would learn to hate their fathers, because they believed that the father would steal the mothers affection towards their son. Females were often left out of the question with this theory, so the Electra theory developed. The Electra theory is the psychosexual theory, where girls are in competition with their mothers for possession of their fathers. This is when a daughter would begin feeling resentment towards their mother, and often try to break their emotional bond in order to become closer to their father. Furthermore, the daughter would become “father-fixated”, while the son would become “mother-fixated”. While this stage happens early in a child’s life, the resentment towards their parent may continue further on in life. In particular this stage of their lives can be left unsolved if a parent becomes absent within the child’s life, or if they have died. Unresolved Electra complexes are common for daughters who have lost their father, or if their father was never present in their lives. Daughters have unresolved issues with their mother for reasons they

By being able to create resentment and a barrier between her and her mother, she is finally able to live her own life. She no longer will be considered a child by anyone; she is able to be a woman seeking love. Mag wanted to keep Maureen around because she wanted to maintain their emotional connection that they have. Even though Mag chose to lie to her multiple times, she did it out of love for Maureen. In most cases of unresolved Electra complexes, it does not come to this extreme of measures, where a daughter has to kill her mother. For Maureen, this was the only resolution that she believed was the best in order to break the emotional bonds. While Mag may have truly loved her daughter, there was no excuse for her to lie to Maureen multiple times to keep her from going off and living her own life. After killing Mag, Maureen finally was able to be live the life she was never able to