Horrible Mothers

Representations across Francophone North America

Loïc Bourdeau

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780803293984
• eBook ISBN: 9781496218278
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Women Authors
• Index: Literature

For too long the main narratives of motherhood have been oppressive and exclusionary, frequently ignoring issues of female identity—especially regarding those not conforming to traditional female stereotypes. Horrible Mothers offers a variety of perspectives for analyzing representations of the mother in francophone literature and film at the turn of the twenty-first century in North America, including Québec, Ontario, New England, and California. Contributors reexamine the "horrible mother" paradigm within a broad range of sociocultural contexts from different locations to broaden the understanding of mothering beyond traditional ideology.The selections draw from long-established scholarship in women's studies as well as from new developments in queer studies to make sense of and articulate strategies of representation;toshow how contemporary family models are constantly evolving, reshaping, and moving away from heteronormative expectations; and to repositionmothers as subjects occupying the center of their own narrative, rather than as objects. The contributors engage narratives of mothering from myriad perspectives, referencing the works of writers or filmmakers such as Marguerite Andersen, Nelly Arcan, Grégoire Chabot, Xavier Dolan, Nancy Huston, and Lucie Joubert.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Failing Successfully
• 1. The Whore and Her Mother: Exploring Matrophobia in Nelly Arcan’s Putain
• 2. Horrible Mothers in Mémère’s Kitchen: Queer Identity in New England Franco-America
• 3. “I’m Not the Virgin Mary”: Rebellious Motherhood in Grégoire Chabot’s “A Life Lost”
• 4. Permissive Parenting: The Awful American Mother in Nancy Huston’s Lignes de faille
• 5. Lucie Joubert’s Ironic Rejection of Motherhood in L’envers du landau
• 6. Voicing Shame: From Fiction to Confession in the Work of Marguerite Andersen
• 7. The Transgressive Mother in Nancy Huston’s Bad Girl: Classes de littérature
• 8. Forgiving the Horrible Mother: Children’s Needs and Women’s Desires in Twenty-First-Century Québécois Film
• 9. Politics and Motherhood in Xavier Dolan’s J’ai tué ma mère and Mommy
• Contributors
• Index