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Can the Breast Feed the Mother Too? Tracing Maternal Subjectivity in T oni M orrison's B eloved
Author(s) -
Stone Rebecca
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/bjp.12162
Subject(s) - breastfeeding , feeling , psychology , ambivalence , fantasy , subjectivity , depiction , creativity , object (grammar) , developmental psychology , social psychology , psychoanalysis , literature , medicine , epistemology , pediatrics , linguistics , philosophy , art
Breastfeeding tends to elicit strong feelings in mothers as well as impassioned rhetoric in our cultural discourse. Psychoanalytic thinkers have focused extensively on the infant's experience at the breast. Surprisingly, much less theoretical attention has been given to the mother's experience of breastfeeding. I begin with my own experience of struggling with this early stage of motherhood and with understanding why this act seemed to hold such emotional power. By tracing the theme of breastfeeding in T oni M orrison's B eloved , I attempt to draw out ideas about the breastfeeding mother as a subject rather than an object. I argue that the novel's depiction of breastfeeding supports understanding the maternal body as a source of ambivalence and creativity for the mother as well as for the infant. Drawing mainly on the work of M elanie K lein, D onald W innicott and J ulia K risteva, I explore through literary readings how breastfeeding comes to stir up such passionate and often difficult feelings for mothers.