The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism

Mothers and daughters--the female figures neglected by classic psychoanalysis and submerged in traditional narrative--are at the center of this book. The novels of nineteenth- and twentieth-century women writers from the Western European and North American traditions reveal that the story of motherhood remains the unspeakable plot of Western culture. Focusing on the feminine and, more controversially, on the maternal, this book alters our perception of both the familial structures basic to traditional narrative--the Oedipus story--and the narrative structures basic to traditional representations of the family--Freud's family romance. Confronting psychoanalytic theories of subject-formation with narrative theories, Marianne Hirsch traces the emergence and transformation of female family romance patterns from Jane Austen to Marguerite Duras.

Author: Marianne Hirsch
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 10/22/1989
Series: Midland Book #532
Pages: 260
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 9.18h x 6.18w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780253205322