Motherhood and representation : the mother in popular culture and melodrama
"From 19th-century novels to films in the 1990s, American culture abounds with the images of white, middle-class mothers. Kaplan looks at how they appear in the psychoanalytic, historical and cultural spheres."--Provided by publisher
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xv, 250 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780415011266, 9780415011273, 9781136093722, 0415011264, 0415011272, 1136093729
25049376
1. Introduction
2. The historical sphere : motherhood as institution and social discourse
3. The psychoanalytic sphere and motherhood discourse
4. Women's writing, melodrama and film
5. The maternal melodrama : the sacrifice paradigm : Ellen Wood's East Lynne and its play and film versions
6. The maternal melodrama : the "phallic" mother paradigm : Now voyager (1942) and Marnie (1964)
7. The "resisting" text within the patriarchal "feminine" : nineteenth-century women's writing and the "maternal woman's film" in the silent era : Uncle Tom's cabin; Herland; The blot; The crowd; Applause
8. The "resisting" maternal woman's film 1930-1960 : Arzner's Christopher Strong and Craig's wife; Imitation of life (1934 and 1959); Stella Dallas (1937); select Sirk films
9. Sex, work and mother/fatherhood : consumerism, science and reproductive technologies in the postmodern era