Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and MelodramaFrom novels of the nineteenth century to films of the 1990s, American culture, abounds with images of white, middle-class mothers. In Motherhood and Representation, E. Ann Kaplan considers how the mother appears in three related spheres: the historical, in which she charts changing representations of the mother from 1830 to the postmodernist present; the psychoanalytic, which discusses theories of the mother from Freud to Lacan and the French Feminists; and the mother as she is figured in cultural representations: in literary and film texts such as East Lynne, Marnie and the The Handmaid's Tale, as well as in journalism and popular manuals on motherhood. Kaplan's analysis identifies two dominant paradigms of the mother as `Angel' and `Witch', and charts the contesting and often contradictory discourses of the mother in present-day America. |
From inside the book
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Page xiii
... argue in the final chapter, the foetus now begins to take center stage. When that happens, the mother is dramatically re-positioned: she is relegated to the margins and her needs now subordinated to those of the foetus, who becomes the ...
... argue in the final chapter, the foetus now begins to take center stage. When that happens, the mother is dramatically re-positioned: she is relegated to the margins and her needs now subordinated to those of the foetus, who becomes the ...
Page xiv
... arguments made here. My students — over the years since I began teaching courses on motherhood in literature and film at Rutgers University in 1982 through to similar courses at Stony Brook in 1987 and 1988 — have provided invaluable ...
... arguments made here. My students — over the years since I began teaching courses on motherhood in literature and film at Rutgers University in 1982 through to similar courses at Stony Brook in 1987 and 1988 — have provided invaluable ...
Page 9
... argue that mothers in particular, or individual families (even those fitting into the white, heterosexual, biological norm) necessarily operated according to the dominant discourse. Some presumably did, others did not; as in any period ...
... argue that mothers in particular, or individual families (even those fitting into the white, heterosexual, biological norm) necessarily operated according to the dominant discourse. Some presumably did, others did not; as in any period ...
Page 10
... argue here that women's activist capacities and resilience in the face of oppressive institutional positioning exist ... arguments in two ways: first, the level of family subjectivity needs to be set alongside that of the historical ...
... argue here that women's activist capacities and resilience in the face of oppressive institutional positioning exist ... arguments in two ways: first, the level of family subjectivity needs to be set alongside that of the historical ...
Page 18
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Contents
Part II Motherhood and fictional representation | 57 |
Notes | 220 |
Bibliography | 227 |
Names index | 239 |
Subject index | 245 |
Other editions - View all
Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama E. Ann Kaplan Limited preview - 2013 |
Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama E. Ann Kaplan No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
American argue articulated baby Barbara briefly Carlyle Carlyle’s century Chapter child Chodorow Christopher Strong codes complicit concept confine conflict constructed culture Cynthia daughter defined desire developed difficult discussed dominant East Lynne erotic explore fantasies father female feminine feminism feminist fiction fictional figure film film versions film’s final finally find first focus foetus Freud Freudian gaze gender genre Handmaid’s Tale Harriet heroine historical Hollywood ideal identification ideology images Imaginary Irigaray Isabel Kristeva Lacanian Levison linked Lois Weber male Marnie maternal melodrama maternal sacrifice middle-class mother mother-figure mother—child mother—daughter motherhood discourses narrative nineteenth-century North America notes novel nuclear family Oankali Oedipal paradigm patriarchal Peola phallic phallus popular position postmodern pre-Oedipal produced psychic psychoanalytic theory reflects relation relationship representations represents reproductive technologies resisting role Rousseau sexual significant significantly social specific spectator sphere Stella Dallas Symbolic terrain unconscious upper-class Weber woman woman’s women