The Mother in Myth: Narratives of Trauma in Collective Memory

Abstract

The archetypal image of the Mother in myth is a metaphor of the collective expression of the unconscious. The Lacanian separation from the Mother posits a dialectical trauma of the infantile collective memory articulated in myths.The Indian myths contain narratives of the maternal archaic imago, distinct from the narratives of the West. The distinction in these narratives with respect to obedience towards the father figure of authority while they seek union with the mother, marks a point of departure from the occidental narratives.This research paper segments  these narratives through the attributes of ‘mother-son association’ and ‘mother-daughter association’ and juxtaposes them with parallel narratives of the West with the aim of interweaving the contradictory images to harness complementary aspects of a unified totality.