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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... specific daughter- and mother-subjects that I embodied from, in Lacan's terms, the unconscious Imaginary and Symbolic Mothers over which I had no control and yet which positioned me. This led to the book's primary focus on discourses ...
... specific daughter- and mother-subjects that I embodied from, in Lacan's terms, the unconscious Imaginary and Symbolic Mothers over which I had no control and yet which positioned me. This led to the book's primary focus on discourses ...
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... specific focus on representations rather than on what I will shortly call “the historical” or “real life” mother, who is usually the object of study; second, its theorizing the mother-representations as produced through tensions between ...
... specific focus on representations rather than on what I will shortly call “the historical” or “real life” mother, who is usually the object of study; second, its theorizing the mother-representations as produced through tensions between ...
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... specific texts. Other aspects of the book to be noted are, first, its broad historical span (it encompasses North American culture – including European influences – from 1830 to 1960, with a look at recent developments in the final ...
... specific texts. Other aspects of the book to be noted are, first, its broad historical span (it encompasses North American culture – including European influences – from 1830 to 1960, with a look at recent developments in the final ...
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... evidence to support generalizations, and of taking into account specific historical contexts, cultural, racial and class differences, the changing nature of the reading/viewing public, the contexts of production and exhibition, and so.
... evidence to support generalizations, and of taking into account specific historical contexts, cultural, racial and class differences, the changing nature of the reading/viewing public, the contexts of production and exhibition, and so.
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... specific ways. The concept of a “Master Discourse” derives ultimately from Nietzsche, who, in his Genealogy of Morale, comments on the difficulty of eradicating ourselves from the intellectual traditions of established authorities: The ...
... specific ways. The concept of a “Master Discourse” derives ultimately from Nietzsche, who, in his Genealogy of Morale, comments on the difficulty of eradicating ourselves from the intellectual traditions of established authorities: The ...
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