Disjointed Perspectives on Motherhood [Hardcover]

A?wonderful compendium of ?interpretive scholarship about arguably our most important relationship: with our mothers, and with ourselves as mothers. By turns lyrical, intense, and always thoughtful, this is textual analysis at its best. Disjointed Perspectives on Motherhood invites us into the dramatic worlds of mothering and trauma, broadly defined, from 18th century English Gothic to Emersonian Americafrom the Igbo mothers of Nigeria, to the contemporary genre of nobody memoir. These are literary essays in both senses of a consistently high standard, offering a wealth of fresh insights into this under-explored yet often misunderstood or disjointed figure at the heart of all our lives.A wide-ranging study of the literary representation of motheringhighlighting the socio-cultural expectations surrounding motherhood and the often traumatic consequences of these expectations. These essays examine texts of various languages from different time frames and geographical spaces. Taken together, they provide a damning critique of patriarchal society's refusal to understand the myriad experiences of mothering.Disjointed Perspective on Motherhood does the important work of denaturalizing the link between women and motherhood. Wide-ranging in scope, the essays examine womens experiences of refusing, embracing, or struggling with motherhood, and the vast majority of them will be extremely useful to scholars working in the areas of gender and cultural studies.Disjointed Perspectives on Motherhood offers new insight into the maternal experience. Addressing the duality of nature and nurture as they come together in shaping the complex identity of mother, it becomes clear how unrealistic and simplistic our expectations have become. The essays in this text open avenues for compassion and curiosity which will foster our understanding of one of the most important roles we may hold in our lives as womenthat of mother.Readers will find the individual chapters to be engaging, cló€