From the feminine to the maternal : elusive maternal subjectivities and the rejection of motherhood in contemporary American fiction (original) (raw)
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2016
The article examines the nuanced representation of the rejection of motherhood in three postwar American novels to highlight the perspectives on maternal subjectivity. A close reading of the texts is utilized to analyze patterns of the rejection of motherhood displayed in abortion and infanticide or rejecting the traditional model of motherhood that is limited to females. This close analysis reveals the nuances in the representation of the rejection of motherhood. Although the novels highlight a feminine subjectivity that is independent from the maternal one, their representation reveals that these examples of the literary production of the seventies may not be completely independent from conservative approaches to feminine subjectivity.
(Post)Feminist Maternal Chronicles and Their Discontents
This essay reads the conflict, ambivalence and guilt that pervade what I call " maternal chronicles " —a heterogenous set of autobiographical texts centering on the experience of mothering—as symptomatic of the postfeminist turn in Span
Textual Mothers/Maternal Texts: Motherhood in Contemporary Women's Literature
Journal of the Motherhood Initiative For Research and Community Involvement, 2003
Elizabeth Podnieks and Andrea O'Reilly, eds. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010 387pp Reviewer: Jenni Ramone This far-reaching collection of essays is committed to revealing mothers' stories while establishing firm connections between the fields of Motherhood Studies and Literary
“What is to be a ‘Mother’?”—An Exposition of “Non-biological Mothers” in Literary Texts
English Language and Literature Studies, 2016
This paper investigates the identity formation of "non-biological mothers" in a sample of texts which include primarily "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" by Bertolt Brecht, "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë and "Eveline" by James Joyce. Three characters are selected from the works who perform the role of "mother" at different levels for children who are "biologically" not their own. In Brecht's play, Grusha cares for the child that is left by his own mother. In Bronte's novel, Nelly Dean looks after both Hareton and Junior Catherine, children who have lost their "biological" mother, as well as Heathcliff who is brought to the house as an orphan. In Joyce's short story, Eveline performs the role of mother and remains in Dublin defying her boyfriend's attempts to take her away to possible happiness in a faraway land. In the study, these three figures and their role as "mother" are the primary focus. However, characters such as the first wife of Okonkwo in "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achabe and Anna-Maria in "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen are also be examined to understand how women who have their own children, become committed towards children who are "biologically" not their own. The study elucidates the way this role of "non-biological mother" is constructed in various literary contexts and more specifically how these "non-biological mothers" are not recognized and their love regarded as subservient to the "love" of the "biological mother". A textual analysis of texts is used to interpret these characters in their specific literary settings. In this manner, the study promotes a re-reading of the role of "non-biological mothers" and re-interprets the socio-political implications of the role of "mother" as well as the concept of "motherhood".
Maternal Ambivalence: The Drama of Maternal Subjectivity
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2012
This book is a welcome and provocative contribution to feminist and psychoanalytical theories of motherhood and philosophical conceptions of subjectivity. There is little discussion of motherhood in psychoanalytic theory, where the main protagonist is the child and its difficult process of becoming a sexed speaking subject. With its presumption of universality, the philosophical conception of rational subjectivity not only marginalizes femininity but is in fact predicated upon the exclusion of body, affectivity, care, and relationality characteristic of maternal experience. Thus Stone rightly claims that the philosophical conception of subjectivity, action, and agency is at odds with motherhood, which, within these premises, would represent the loss of agency and the subsequent subservience of the self to the child's needs. Even in feminist theory there is a paucity of analyses of motherhood because of the lingering suspicions that even a critical focus on maternity might be complicit with the patriarchal heteronormative prescription in service of gender domination and at odds with the professional aspirations of women. As Stone puts it, Second Wave feminism is primarily a daughter's discourse. Thus, if motherhood represents a different kind of subjectivity, it is still an invisible subject, undertheorized and philosophically unaccounted for. Consequently, by providing a feminist articulation of maternal subjectivity, Stone's book represents an important intervention into all three of these disciplines: psychoanalysis, feminism, and philosophy.
WOMB FICTION: LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERARY CHALLENGES TO THE WOMAN AS WOMB PARADIGM
Motherhood has been reified into a compulsory component of 'normal' womanhood to such an all encompassing extent that the category 'woman' is largely 'womb dependent.' While feminism has undoubtedly made inroads into this delimiting conflation, we are now, at the beginning of the 21 51 century, seemingly moving backwards rather than forwards in regards to women's rights, especially in relation to reproductive freedom. In fact, we seem to be making a decided U-tum. From the "New Momism" ideology so brilliantly elucidated by Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels in which women's 'worth' is tied to their capacity to be 'perfect mothers,' to the increasingly restrictive legislation regarding a woman's right to choose, it seems the triumphs of feminism and women's rights in relation to reproductive issues and maternal subjecthood are eroding at an alarming rate. 1 In response to this erosion, a unique corpus of women's fiction has emerged over the past two and a half decades that draws on elements of satire and the grotesque in order to challenge the conception of woman as womb. This humorous, incisive body of texts serves as a critical roadblock on the increasingly neo-conservative, fundamentalist anti-feminist fast track that is currently permeating the globe.