Title Death and the mother from Dickens to Freud : Victorian fiction and the anxiety of origins / Carolyn Dever

Published Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 233 pages) Series Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 17 Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 17 Contents The lady vanishes -- Psychoanalytic cannibalism -- Broken mirror, broken wor-s: Bleak house -- Wilkie Collins and the secret of the mother's plot -- Denial, displacement, Deronda -- Calling Dr. Darwin --Virginia Woolf's "Victorian novel." Summary 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 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-229) and index Notes English Print version record Subject English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism Mothers in literature. Psychoanalysis and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Women and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Psychological fiction, English -- History and criticism Maternal deprivation in literature. Motherhood in literature. Sex role in literature. Death in literature. LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. Death in literature English fiction Literature and society Maternal deprivation in literature Motherhood in literature Mothers in literature Psychoanalysis and literature Psychological fiction, English Sex role in literature Women and literature Victoriaanse tijd. Fictie. Dood. Moeders. English. Languages & Literatures. English Literature. Great Britain Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book LC no. 97027250 ISBN 0511003617 9780511003615 0511585306 9780511585302

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