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
Results 1-5 of 74
Page
... 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 and representations rather than on the immediate, subjective level of mothering ...
... 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 and representations rather than on the immediate, subjective level of mothering ...
Page
... unconscious male needs regarding the mother, on the mother-in-the-unconscious and, finally, on compelling motherhood images in the melodrama that dominated my mental landscape about what a mother should or should not be – these emphases ...
... unconscious male needs regarding the mother, on the mother-in-the-unconscious and, finally, on compelling motherhood images in the melodrama that dominated my mental landscape about what a mother should or should not be – these emphases ...
Page
... unconscious, of the individualist discourse, but also of the Lacanian Imaginary, and of how humans come to be subjects.) Thus, while the weight of the book and its main focus is on mother- representations in literary and film texts ...
... unconscious, of the individualist discourse, but also of the Lacanian Imaginary, and of how humans come to be subjects.) Thus, while the weight of the book and its main focus is on mother- representations in literary and film texts ...
Page
... unconscious – mother through whom the subject is constituted – who is first fully articulated by Freud at the turn of the century as the split-mother: this mother is later theorized more fully by (largely female) analysts; and third ...
... unconscious – mother through whom the subject is constituted – who is first fully articulated by Freud at the turn of the century as the split-mother: this mother is later theorized more fully by (largely female) analysts; and third ...
Page
... unconscious, which, ironically, did not lead to discussion of the mother's subjectivity; rather it produced the mother as the one through whom “I,” the child, become a subject); to recent mother-discourses in reaction to (but also ...
... unconscious, which, ironically, did not lead to discussion of the mother's subjectivity; rather it produced the mother as the one through whom “I,” the child, become a subject); to recent mother-discourses in reaction to (but also ...
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