The cultural ideal of motherhood in Victorian Britain seems to be
undermined by Victorian novels, which almost always represent
mothers as incapacitated, abandoning or dead. Carolyn Dever argues
that the phenomenon of the dead or missing mother in Victorian
narrative is central to the construction of the good mother as a
cultural ideal. Maternal loss is the prerequisite for Victorian
representations of domestic life, a fact which has especially
complex implications for women. When Freud constructs
psychoanalytical models of family, gender and desire, he too
assumes that domesticity begins with the death of the mother.
Analysing texts by Dickens, Collins, Eliot, Darwin and Woolf, as
well as Freud, Klein and Winnicott, Dever argues that fictional and
theoretical narratives alike use maternal absence to articulate
concerns about gender and representation. Psychoanalysis has long
been used to analyse Victorian fiction; Dever contends that
Victorian fiction has much to teach us about psychoanalysis.
General
Imprint: |
Cambridge UniversityPress
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Series: |
Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture |
Release date: |
November 2006 |
First published: |
October 2006 |
Authors: |
Carolyn Dever
|
Dimensions: |
228 x 151 x 13mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
252 |
Edition: |
New ed |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-521-03255-1 |
Categories: |
Books >
Language & Literature >
Literature: history & criticism >
Literary studies >
19th century
|
LSN: |
0-521-03255-5 |
Barcode: |
9780521032551 |
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