The Matrophobic Gothic and Its Legacy
Subtitle: Sacrificing Mothers in the Novel and in Popular Culture
Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing; Peter Lang
Published: August 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 167
ISBN-13: 9781433100451
Subjects: Popular Culture - General; Women's Studies - General; Social Science; 18th century; 19th century; English fiction; History and criticism; Mothers in literature; Sociology
Description: "Although in recent years maternity has become a contested site of political discourse, the matrophobia that characterizes many mother-daughter bonds has hardly been theorized. This book defines matrophobia as fear of mothers, as fear of becoming a mother, and as fear of identification with and separation from the maternal body. Deborah D. Rogers argues that matrophobia is the central metaphor for women's relationships with each other within a patriarchal culture." "Analyzing different contexts in which matrophobia problematizes feminism, this book begins with matrophobic discourse in eighteenth-century England. Significantly, the self-sacrificing construction of motherhood emerges at the same time as the novel, a genre that develops as a locus for the radical displacement of matrophobia."--BOOK JACKET.