Re-Envisioning the Freudian Mother in Southern Literature - by Jill Goad (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Through the lens of a feminist psychoanalytic framework, Re-Envisioning the Freudian Mother in Southern Literature re-evaluates the mother-child dynamic as one far more complicated than what is present in typical psychoanalytic readings.

Under this framework, Jill Goad explores the figure of the mother through Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, William Faulkner's Light in August, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, Eudora Welty's The Golden Apples, Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard and other poems, and Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing. The author argues that the Freudian concept of castration occurring at birth rather than a child's early years, contrasting the Freudian-influenced theorists dominate the notion of psychoanalysis in literature. Goad's approach to analyzing mothers and the consequences of birth classifies mother figures as powerful and complex instead of weak, frightening, or two-dimensional. Re-Envisioning the Freudian Mother in Southern Literature encourages a complete re-evaluation of the mother as one who gives birth to selfhood and subjectivity as opposed to a lack of agency.

Review Quotes

"Re-Envisioning the Freudian Mother in Southern Literature studies an impressive array of 20th and 21st century southern literary texts. By employing a feminist revision of Freud's theory of the mother, Jill Goad offers a persuasive reading of the maternal figure in these works as powerful and complex. The study both recovers silent characters and reveals the complexity of mother-child relationships from the mothers' perspectives. With the connective thread of motherhood, Goad's book contains finely textured analyses, helpful insights into characters, and a new lens to think about literature." --Sarah Gilbreath Ford, Professor of American literature, Baylor University, USA

"This book upends the Oedipal hierarchy by positioning birth as a form of castration. In doing so, it insightfully brings southern mothers and maternal figures to the center of feminist psychoanalytic frameworks that reveal both their complexities and ambiguities. An overall fascinating read that expands the scholarly conversation in exciting ways." --Rebecca L. Harrison, Professor of English, University of West Georgia, USA

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