Mothers, daughters, and revolutions: Postcolonial feminism in the works of margaret Atwood, Bapsi Sidhwa, and Buchi Emecheta

Abstract

This paper re-examines the intersection of motherhood, daughterhood, and postcolonial feminism through the literary works of Margaret Atwood, Bapsi Sidhwa, and Buchi Emecheta. It argues that mother-daughter relationships constitute critical sites of resistance, negotiation, and cultural continuity in the aftermath of colonial and patriarchal legacies. Using theoretical insights from Spivak, Mohanty, Hooks, and Loomba, the study demonstrates how female subjectivity is shaped by socio-political histories and how women-through memory, storytelling, and embodied defiance-contest both Western feminist homogenization and colonial ideologies. Atwood critiques reproductive control as a tool of authoritarianism, Sidhwa foregrounds the gendered traumas of Partition as integral to postcolonial identity, and Emecheta dismantles idealized motherhood within the intersecting pressures of tradition and colonial modernity. By centring female agency, the paper positions literature as a space of subversion and resilience for women in diverse cultural contexts.