From the feminine to the maternal : elusive maternal subjectivities and the rejection of motherhood in contemporary American fiction (original) (raw)

This thesis is an exploration of representations that revise perceptions of motherhood and gender through the concept of rejection of traditional maternal ideals in American novels written between the 1970s and early 21st century. Themes of voluntary childlessness, postpartum depression, child abuse and infanticide are explored through representations that narrate alternative and nuanced perceptions of motherhood and gender. Shifts in the perspective of representative maternal characters revise perceptions of motherhood and disrupt the discourse structuring the maternal ideal. Theorized by Lisa Baraitser in Maternal Encounters: The Ethics of Interruption (2008), the maternal ideal is deconstructed through the concept of interruption to the mother’s perception of herself as a maternal subject. Concepts like maternal ambivalence, revealed through the portrayal of interrupted transformation into the maternal subject, revise the discourse about the potential mother in every female which...