‘괴물-아이’의 엄마 되기:『다섯째 아이』와 모성서사의 비판적 잠재성 = Mothering a Monster-Child:The Fifth Child and the Critical Potential of Maternal Narratives

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This essay reads Doris Lessing’s maternal narrative in The Fifth Child as a critique of the myth of the autonomous individual and family, claiming that the novel’s depictions of motherhood as institution and as experience invite us to rethink the main premises of the neoliberal gender regime. In the first section, I examine how the novel reveals the fundamental vulnerability of life facing the ills of society outside the Lovatt family circle. It turns out that what eventually supports their happy life is nothing but sheer luck, while it constantly demands loss of maternal agency and sacrifice. Recuperation of maternal agency, however, is not what this novel’s critical stance aims at. Rather, as I argue in the second section,ethical dimensions of mothering emerge at the pivotal point of the narrative when Harriet takes the responsibility of caring for Ben and becomes his mother despite the impossibility of motherly love. Unlike her husband, Harriet cannot deny the claims of trans-individual connection with Ben. While this may be taken as yet another instance of maternal self-sacrifice and subjection, Harrient’s acceptance of Ben indicates the potential of maternal subjectivity that debunks the myths of the autonomous individual and moves towards communal notions of self and society.

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 재끌린 로즈, "숭배와 혐오: 모성이라는 신화에 대하여" 창비 2020

2 최선령, "도리스 레씽의 『다섯째 아이』: ‘행복한 가족’의 몰락" 한국현대영미소설학회 13 (13): 155-175, 2006

3 Susan Watkins, "Writing in a Minor Key: Doris Lessing’s Late Twentieth-Century Fiction" 25 (25): 2013

4 Melida Vandenbeld Giles, "The Routledge Companion to Motherhood" Routledge 380-, 2019

5 Mervyn Rothstein, "The Painful Nurturing of Doris Lessing’s ‘Fifth Child’"

6 Doris Lessing, "The Fifth Child" Harper 1988

7 Sharon Hays, "The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood" Yale UP 1996

8 Denys Landry, "Textual Mothers/ Maternal Texts: Motherhood in Contemporary Women’s Literature" Wilfried Laurier UP 157-168, 2010

9 Emily Clark, "Re-reading Horror Stories: Maternity, Disability and Narrative in Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child" 98 : 173-189, 2011

10 Earl G. Ingersoll, "Putting the Questions Differently: Interviews with Doris Lessing 1964-1994" Ontario Review P 235-, 1994

11 Adrienne Rich, "Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution" Norton 1976

12 Richard Brock, "No Such Thing as Society: Thatcherism and Derridean Hospitality in The Fifth Child" 28 (28): 7-13, 2009

13 Brenda O. Daly, "Narrating Mothers: Theorizing Maternal Subjectivities" U of Tennessee P 1-3, 1991

14 Louise Yelin, "From the Margins of Empire: Christina Stead, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer" Cornell UP 104-, 1998

15 Angela McRobbie, "Feminism, the Family and the New ‘Mediated’ Maternalism" 80 : 119-137, 2013

16 Ruth Robbins, "Doris Lessing: Border Crossings" Continuum 92-106, 2009

17 Arthur Marwick, "British Society Since 1945" Penguin 151-212, 2003

18 Douglas Keay, "Aids, Education and the Year 2000: Interview with Margaret Thatcher" 31 : 9-, 1987