Contemporary narratives of motherhood: temporality, reparation and subjectivity

Abstract

The site of maternal experience remains largely unmapped; this thesis focusses on an emerging strand of maternal writing which explores maternal subjectivity, temporality, and reparation. The thesis conceptualises the altered perceptions and ontological sensations encountered through the mother’s intense relation to the child. It begins with a philosophical investigation into the mother as an altered temporal being, in line with Martin Heidegger’s notion of temporality. It then turns to an exploration of the mother-daughter relationship, working through the themes of loss, ambivalence, and reparation. In order to theorise the mother-daughter relationship in the texts discussed, it engages with Melanie Klein’s theories on mother-infant relations as well as reparation with the lost mother. It conducts a thorough exploration of factors of maternal subjectivity, including interruption, fragmentation of self, alterity, and pregnant consciousness. Finally, it argues that the maternal texts discussed within the thesis justify being theorised as a divergent strand of maternal writing and life-writing through their experimentation with form and queering of motherhood.

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