This case study explores the epistolary strategies of negotiating the mother-daughter
relationship through a reading of the correspondence between a widowed mother and
her two married, half-sister daughters. Drawing on recent scholarship which investigates
how emotional practices shaped relations of power, this study seeks to highlight how
differences in age, social rank, and position in the family hierarchy between the
half-sisters provoked distinctive strategies of bargaining their bonds to their mother.
Furthermore, it contrasts rhetorical tactics adopted in everyday communication and
in moments of crisis and interprets such epistolary strategies in the context of performing
filial/maternal identities and doing authority.
