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Mothers

Page 18

by Jacqueline Rose


  51  Ferrante, Frantumaglia, p. 116.

  52  Ibid., p. 98.

  53  Ibid., p. 223.

  54  Lucy Jones, ‘As she is born, part of me is dying’, Guardian, 9 January 2017.

  55  Ferrante, Story of a New Name, p. 372.

  56  Ferrante, Lost Daughter, p. 125.

  57  Ferrante, Frantumaglia, p. 222.

  58  Ibid., p. 193.

  59  Ibid., p. 99.

  60  Ibid.

  61  Ibid.

  62  Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend, p. 229.

  63  Ferrante, Frantumaglia, p. 239.

  64  Ibid., p. 100.

  65  Ibid.

  66  Ibid.

  67  Ibid., p. 176, Story of the Lost Child, p. 175.

  68  Ferrante, Story of a New Name, p. 289.

  69  Ibid.

  70  Ferrante, Story of the Lost Child, p. 466.

  71  Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend, p. 231.

  72  William Maxwell, They Came Like Swallows, 1937, London: Vintage, 2008, p. 10.

  73  Ibid.

  74  Ibid., p. 11, pp. 31–2.

  75  Ferrante, Frantumaglia, p. 146.

  76  Ibid., p. 367.

  77  Ibid., p. 147.

  78  Ferrante, Story of the Lost Child, p. 309.

  79  Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, p. 290.

  80  Ibid., p. 291 (emphasis original).

  81  Ibid.

  82  Ferrante, Frantumaglia, p. 368 (emphasis original).

  83  Ibid., p. 54.

  84  Ibid., p. 220.

  85  Ibid., p. 66.

  86  Ibid., p. 90.

  87  Ibid., p. 92.

  88  Ibid., p. 201.

  89  Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, p. 28.

  90  Ferrante, Frantumaglia, p. 336.

  91  Ibid., p. 217.

  92  Ibid., p. 368.

  93  Ibid., p. 268, p. 326.

  94  Ibid.

  95  Ibid., p. 301, p. 286.

  96  Ibid., p. 126.

  97  Ibid., pp. 126–7.

  98  Ferrante, Days of Abandonment, p. 127.

  99  Ibid., p. 224.

  100  Ferrante, Frantumaglia, p. 347, p. 350.

  THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY: INSIDE OUT

  1    Sylvia Plath, ‘Morning Song’, in Ariel (London: Faber, 1965).

  2    Marjorie Perloff, ‘The Two Ariels: The (Re)making of the Sylvia Plath Canon’, American Poetry Review, November–December 1984.

  3    Danuta Kean, ‘Plath accused Hughes of beating her and wanting her dead, trove of letters shows’, Guardian, 11 April 2017.

  4    Darian Leader, Strictly Bipolar (London: Penguin, 2013).

  5    Fiona Shaw, Out of Me: The Story of a Postnatal Breakdown (London: Penguin, 1997).

  6    Lou-Marie Kruger, Kirsten van Straaten, Laura Taylor, Marleen Lourens and Carla Dukas, ‘The Melancholy of Murderous Mothers: Depression and the Medicalization of Women’s Anger’, Feminism and Psychology, published online, 30 June 2014, p. 8. My thanks to Lou-Marie Kruger for bringing this work to my attention.

  7    Ibid.

  8    Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937 (Oxford: OUP, 1992), p. 359 (emphasis mine).

  9    Linda Kerber, ‘The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment – An American Perspective’, American Quarterly, 28:2, 1976, cited in Shaul Bar-Haim, The Maternalizing Movement: Psychoanalysis, Motherhood and the British Welfare State c. 1920–1950, unpublished PhD thesis, Birkbeck 2015, p. 18.

  10  Sigmund Freud, ‘The Disillusionment of the War’, in Thoughts for the Times on War and Death, 1915, Standard Edn, vol.14 (London: Hogarth Press, 1957), p. 276; The Future of an Illusion, Standard Edn, vol. 21 (London: Hogarth Press, 1961), p. 20.

  11  Freud, The Future of an Illusion, p. 12.

  12  My thanks to Miranda Carter for alerting me to this series, and to Margaret and Lucy Reynolds for the occasion we watched it together.

  13  Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (Oxford: Heinemann, 1979).

  14  For a sustained, political critique of the concept of happiness, see Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).

  15  Simon de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième sexe, folio II, p. 385 (trans. p. 537).

  16  Elena Ferrante, Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey, trans. Ann Goldstein (New York: Europa, 2016), p. 100.

  17  Susan Stryker, ‘My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 1:3, 1994.

  18  Ibid.

  19  Ibid.

  20  Ibid.

  21  Sindiwe Magona, Mother to Mother (Claremont: David Philip, and Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), p. 127.

  22  Ibid., p. 2.

  23  Ibid., p. 210.

  24  Ibid., p. 185.

  25  Ibid., p. 201.

  26  Ibid., p. 198.

  27  Amy Biehl’s parents, Linda and Peter Biehl, befriended the man convicted of her murder, after he was released from prison, and two other men who were in the crowd, employing them at the charitable foundation they established in her memory. For one version of this story see Justine van der Leun, We Are Not Such Things: A Murder in a South African Township and the Search for Truth and Reconciliation (London: 4th Estate, 2016). See also Gillian Slovo’s critique of the book, ‘The Politics of Forgiveness’, Literary Review, 445, August 2016.

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Abbreviated Life, An (Leve)

  abortion: and funding; and Gorsuch; and Roe v. Wade; and Trump

  adoption; author’s experience of; and family secrets; and inverse pregnancy

  Aeneid (Virgil)

  Aeschylus

  Africa, and depiction of mothers

  Age of Innocence (Wharton)

  Aguilar, Grace

  Alternamoms

  Alzheimer’s

  Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)

  Another World: Losing our Children to Islamic State (Slovo)

  antenatal clinics

  Antigone (Sophocles)

  Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare)

  apartheid

  Ara Pacis

  Are You My Mother? (Bechdel)

  Arendt, Hannah

  ‘Ariel’ (Plath)

  Ariel (Plath)

  Assad, Bashar al-

  Athena

  attachment parenting

  Attila the Hun

  Augustus, Emperor

  Ayelabola, Bimbo

  Badinter, Elisabeth

  Baird, Zoë

  Balint, Michael

  Baraitser, Lisa

  Bataclan

  Beard, Mary

  Bechdel, Alison

  Beckham, Victoria

  Bee Sequence (of Plath poems)

  Bell, Sean

  Bell, Valerie

  Beloved (Morrison)

  Benn, Melissa

  Bernini, Gian Lorenzo

  Bettelheim, Bruno

  Biehl, Amy

  Bion, W. R.

  Black Lives Matter

  Blair, Tony

  Bord de mer (Olmi)

  Bowlby, Rachel

  breast, as symbol of mother love

  breastfeeding; low UK rate of; in public; rise in US rate of; and erotic pleasure; in McNish video; complexity of; and Love’s lyric; counternarrative on joys of

  Brecht, Bertolt

  Brexit; and NHS; and border policing

  Bromberg

  Brussels, attack on

  Caesar, Julius

&nbs
p; Calais Jungle; and missing mothers; asylum seekers buried at; closure of; see also migration crisis; refugees

  Cambridge, Duchess of

  Cameron, David

  Carr, Gwen

  Catholic Church, apology from

  Cazeneuve, Bernard

  Charlie Hebdo

  Chełmno extermination camp

  childbirth: and ‘health tourism’; and mother’s death; and war; interest in sex lost after; and baby’s character; and trans person; see also mothers; pregnancy

  Citizens Advice

  Cleopatra, Queen

  Clift, Montgomery

  cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

  Colley, Linda

  Collins, Patricia Hill

  Conflict, The: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women (Badinter)

  ‘Container and Contained’ (Bion)

  Coriolanus (Shakespeare)

  Corn King and the Spring Queen, The (Mitchison)

  Cory, Judge

  Croatia, and maternity pay

  Cusk, Rachel

  custody rights

  Czech Republic, and maternity pay

  da Verona, Liberale

  Dahl, Roald

  Daily Mail, and ‘health tourism’

  Days of Abandonment, The (Ferrante)

  de Beauvoir, Simone

  de Jesus Ramos Hernandez, Maria

  Demeter

  de Milet, Thalès

  ‘dependency’ culture

  Deutsch, Helene

  Diseases of Women

  Dobson, Ryan

  Dobson v. Dobson

  Dolce & Gabbana

  Donne, John

  Dowler, Maj.-Gen. Arthur Arnold Bullick

  earthquakes; poor die first in

  Eichenbaum, Luise

  Eidinow, Esther

  Electra (Sophocles)

  electroconvulsive therapy

  Eleusinian Mysteries

  Eleusis

  ‘Embarrassed’ video (McNish)

  Emecheta, Buchi

  Equality and Human Rights Commission

  Estonia, and maternity pay

  Eumenides, The (Aeschylus)

  Euripides

  Evans, Tanya

  family secrets

  Featherstone, Brid

  Feminine Mystique, The

  feminism: on women’s bodily experiences; on mothers in the home; and Medea’s words; ‘essentialist’; and motherhood as target of critique; and banning of Welldon book; de Beauvoir as mother of; and Hughes; and image of stability represented by safe, white, middle-class homes

  Ferrante, Elena; and The Days of Abandonment; and Troubling Love; and The Lost Daughter; and My Brilliant Friend; and The Story of the Lost Child; on collapse of borders; on boundaries of a patriarchal world; on dark side of pregnant body; and counternarrative on joys of breastfeeding; and Frantumaglia; and seeds of ethical life; Neapolitan Novels of, see Neapolitan Novels of Elena Ferrante

  Flaubert, Gustave

  France: and migration crisis; and maternity pay

  Frantumaglia (Ferrante)

  Freud, Sigmund; and façade of civilised living

  From Here to Eternity

  Fun Home (Bechdel)

  Future of an Illusion, The (Freud)

  Galchen, Rivka

  Garner, Eric

  Garner, Margaret

  George, Prince

  Gilmore Girls

  Gingerbread

  Ginn, Diana

  Godard, Jean-Luc

  Goff, Barbara

  Gorsuch, Neil

  Great Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald)

  Green, André

  Grenfell Tower

  Guillimeau, Jacques

  Hadid, Zaha

  Haiti, and hurricanes

  Hall, Edith

  Haloa festival

  Hamlet (Shakespeare)

  ‘Happy Families? History and Family Policy’ (Thane)

  Harrison, Michelle

  ‘Hate in the Counter-Transference’ (Winnicott)

  ‘health tourism’

  Hochman, Sandra

  Homerton University Hospital

  House of Mirth, The (Wharton)

  House of Names (Tóibín)

  Houston, and hurricanes

  Hughes, Ted

  Human Rights Act

  Hungary, and maternity pay

  Hunt, Jeremy

  hurricanes

  I Don’t Know Why She Bothers: Guilt-Free Motherhood for Thoroughly Modern Women (Waugh)

  ‘I Think That I Would Die’ (Hole/Erlandson–Love)

  Icke, Robert

  incest; and half-siblings

  infanticide

  inverse pregnancy

  Ionic frieze of the Parthenon

  Islamic State

  Italy, and maternity pay

  Je vous salue, Marie

  Jones, Lucy

  Joys of Motherhood, The (Emecheta)

  Kaiser Medical Center, LA

  Kent, Nicolas

  Kerr, Deborah

  Klein, Melanie

  Kristeva, Julia

  Kristoff, Nicholas

  La Leche League (LLL)

  Lancaster, Burt

  Laplanche, Jean

  Lawrence, Doreen

  Lawrence, Stephen

  Leadsom, Andrea

  Lean In (Sandbergh)

  Lee, Hermione

  lesbianism

  Leve, Ariel

  Lewis, Gail

  Life’s Work, A: On Becoming a Mother (Cusk)

  L’Indice

  Little Labours (Galchen)

  Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night (Magona)

  Loraux, Nicole

  Lost Daughter, The (Ferrante)

  Love, Courtney

  ‘Lt Lit, la guerre’ (Loraux)

  Lysias

  McNish, Hollie

  McRobbie, Angela

  Madame Bovary (Flaubert)

  Magona, Sindiwe

  Major, Judge

  ‘Mammy’s No. 1’ (in Calais camp)

  Mark Antony

  Markham, Violet

  Marxism, and image of stability represented by safe, white, middle-class homes

  Mary, Queen Mother

  Mateen, Omar

  ‘maternal perversion’

  Maternity Action

  Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations

  maternity pay

  Matilda (Dahl)

  Matilda the Musical

  Maxwell, William

  May, Theresa

  Medea (Euripides); Olmi’s rewrite of; Wolf’s retelling of

  Medical Women’s Federation

  Merkel, Angela

  Metis Women of Manitoba

  migration crisis; and missing mothers

  Miller, George

  Miller, Maria

  Mitchell, Juliet

  Mitchison, Naomi

  Molenbeek

  MomsRising

  Montefiore, Jan

  Morante, Elsa

  ‘Morning Song’ (Plath)

  Morrison, Toni

  mother-and-baby hostels

  Mother, The (Brecht)

  Mother Courage (Brecht)

  Mother Love (Badinter)

  Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood (Welldon)

  Mother to Mother (Magona)

  motherhood in classical culture; see also Ferrante, Elena; individual titles and authors

  mothers: held accountable for world’s ills; and Calais Jungle; exploited misery of; lamenting, seen as hallmark of ‘natural’ catastrophes; as target for blame; and Brecht; and ‘neo-liberal intensification of mothering’; seen as original subversives; and new junior doctors’ contract; and interrogation by abusive ex-partners in secret hearings; in separation and child-contact cases; childbearing risks taken by, and variations across race and class; and maternity pay; and motherhood’s proximity to death; in prison population; and parenting websites; and benefits; and custody rights over children; and undocumented migran
ts taking care of children; and adoption; and promotion of domestic ideal; and relationship across colours; and WW2 hostels; male colonisation of; also as lovers; and ‘primary maternal preoccupation’; and emotional link to world’s wider stage; and breast, as symbol of mother love; and hatred of baby; as set of sets; and ‘maternal perversion’; and ‘dark side’ of mothering; in social work; child abuse by; and alienation of freedom; and sense of ecstasy and fulfilment; were once daughters; and ‘strange compromise’ of motherhood; and ‘erotic vapor’ of body; and mothering manuals; adrift from wider world; ‘working’, a misnomer; and when evil seizes the hour; in South Africa study; and historical, political and social anguish; disjunction between child and; instruction to children from, in, 1950s; and ‘republican motherhood’; and daughters, improved relationship between; and daughters, richness of conversations between; and ‘joy’ as corrupt term; and breast, as symbol of mother love; see also breastfeeding; de Beauvoir’s view of, see de Beauvoir, Simone; Ferrante’s views on, see Ferrante, Elena; in ancient Greece and Rome, see motherhood in classical culture; in classical culture, see motherhood in classical culture; pregnant, see pregnancy; single, see single mothers; in slavery, see slaves/slavery; in literature, see individual titles and authors

  Mother’s Day

  Mothers in Mourning (Loraux)

  Mothers of the Movement

  Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

  Mother’s Recompense, The (Wharton)

  Mrs Dalloway (Woolf)

  My Brilliant Friend (Ferrante); see also Neapolitan Novels of Elena Ferrante

  National Council for One Parent Families

  National Health Service (NHS): Sun’s view of; and ‘health tourism’; and women’s asylum claims

  National Institute of Arts and Letters

 

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