Motherhood In Contemporary American Women’s Fiction

Motherhood is a central concept in feminist theories. Since the second wave of feminist movement, Julia Kristeva、Luce Irigaray、Adrienne Rich、Nancy Chodorow、 Sara Ruddick、Carol Gilligan, etc. have focused on theories of motherhood from different aspects and brought in many brilliant insights. Correspondingly, women novelists start to turn to their mothers through examining their relationship with their mothers so as to construct their own subjectivities, which has greatly helped contemporary mothers give voice to their own existence. With the development of feminist theories, writings on motherhood by contemporary American women novelists have shifted from the refusal of motherhood to a search for matrilineal geneology, trying to construct the subjectivity of the mother. However, how to turn mothers from the traditionally desired objects into spontateous subjects is a huge question, to which many women writers are trying to look for answers. This dissertation focuses on seven works by seven American women novelists: Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar(1963)、Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (1976)、 Toni Morrison’s Beloved(1987)、Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine(1984)、Sue Miller’s The Good Mother(1986)、Mary Gordon’s Men and Angels(1986)、Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees(1988)to map these women writers’journey of constructing maternal subjectivities. In addition to Introduction and Conclusion, this dissertation is made up of four parts:1. The call for maternal subjectivity;2. Becoming the subject of love;3. Becoming the subject of the body;4. Becoming the subject of identity. While discussing "The Call for Maternal Subjectivity", theories of matricide from Irigaray and others will be employed to discuss how mothers were murdered in The Bell Jar and theories of orientalism will be used to analyse how the mother became the other in The Woman Warrior. Social and cultural background of the50s and60s is also examined to analyse how mothers started to create their own discourse from being silenced. In the chapter of "Becoming the Subject of Love". Benjamin and Irigaray’s theories on love and Giligan’s feminist ethics will be incorporated in the discussion of motherlove in Beloved and Men and Angels.The significance of becoming the subject of love in the process of constructing maternal subjecitiviy is also discussed. In the chapter of "Becoming the Subject of the Body", the body of the mother controlled or dismissed in patriarchal culture is analysed through the examination of The Good Mother and Love Medicine.The relationship between the body and the selfhood of the mother is also explored. Lastly, in the chapter "Becoming the Subject of Identiy", through studying The Bean Trees and Love Medicine, adoptive mothers are discussed to review how contemporary mothers have demonstrated their agency in the choosing of motherhood, so as to become the subject of their identity.Seeking mothers’own discourse and writing mothers’own experiences-this has become an important mission for contemporary American women novelists. The mothers discussed in this dissertation have changed from being the other in daughters’writing into various existences. No matter whether they are abandoning their own child, or indulging in their bodily desire, or refusing to give birth to children through traditional marriage, these contemporary women novelists are presenting mothers as subjects who are looking for their selfhood with their bodies instead of being objects willed by the patriarchal society. What’s more, these mothers do not desert their motherly responsibilityies in the process of constructing their subjectivities; instead, they are counscious of their mothering role and are making every effort to strike a balance between being a mother and being oneself. This dissertation has employed various contemporary maternal theories as the theoretical framework to understand the courageous presentation of motherhood in contemporary women novelists’writings.