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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... child rearing; society accepts women who combine motherhood and careers, at least, if not open sex; free enterprise ... children, and the struggle over which children's television programs are desirable has increased.
... child rearing; society accepts women who combine motherhood and careers, at least, if not open sex; free enterprise ... children, and the struggle over which children's television programs are desirable has increased.
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... child abuse in day care centers and with baby sitters, increasing child kidnapping, or the fear that one's child will be killed by a stray bullet. While such happenings have long been a reality for many groups in North America, their ...
... child abuse in day care centers and with baby sitters, increasing child kidnapping, or the fear that one's child will be killed by a stray bullet. While such happenings have long been a reality for many groups in North America, their ...
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... children, in other words, how can a woman distinguish her desire for the child from that imposed on her? While this ... child (whether biological or adopted) informs my examination of cultural products (i.e. I am looking for discourses ...
... children, in other words, how can a woman distinguish her desire for the child from that imposed on her? While this ... child (whether biological or adopted) informs my examination of cultural products (i.e. I am looking for discourses ...
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... child as an imperfect being, weighed down by original sin; others followed Juan Luis Vives' denouncement of mothers who were affectionate or playful. Badinter implies that the discourses she discovered were evidence of social practice ...
... child as an imperfect being, weighed down by original sin; others followed Juan Luis Vives' denouncement of mothers who were affectionate or playful. Badinter implies that the discourses she discovered were evidence of social practice ...
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... child, that produced the modern mother (in her role as there specially to care for the child) who is the object of this study. There were obviously contradictory discourses about childhood in pre-Rousseauian France, as we saw, but ...
... child, that produced the modern mother (in her role as there specially to care for the child) who is the object of this study. There were obviously contradictory discourses about childhood in pre-Rousseauian France, as we saw, but ...
Contents
WOMENS WRITING MELODRAMA AND FILM | |
THE SACRIFICE PARADIGM Ellen Woods | |
THE PHALLIC MOTHER PARADIGM | |
THE RESISTING MATERNAL WOMANS FILM 193060 Arzners | |
Consumerism science | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Names index | |
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 body Carlyle Carlyle’s century Chapter child Chodorow Christopher Strong codes complicit concept constructed context culture Cynthia desire developed discussed dominant East Lynne East Lynne film erotic explore fantasies father female spectator feminine feminism feminist fiction figure film versions film’s focus foetus Freud Freudian gaze gender genre Handmaid’s Tale Harriet heroine historical Hollywood husband ideal identification ideology images Imaginary Irigaray Isabel Kristeva Lacanian Levison linked Lois Weber look male Marnie maternal melodrama maternal sacrifice middle-class mother-child mother-daughter mother-figure motherhood discourses narrative nineteenth-century North America notes novel nuclear family nurturing Oankali object Oedipal patriarchal Peola phallic phallus play political popular position postmodern pre-Oedipal produced psychic psychoanalytic theory relation relationship representations represents reproductive technologies resisting role Rousseau sexual social specific sphere Stella Dallas Stowe’s Symbolic terrain unconscious upper-class Voyager Weber woman woman’s Woman’s Film women York