Mères fatales:maternal guilt in the noir crime novel

Horsley, Lee and Horsley, Katharine (1999) Mères fatales:maternal guilt in the noir crime novel. MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 45 (2). pp. 369-402. ISSN 1080-658X

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Abstract

We argue in this article that the coupling of "noir" conventions with an interest in maternal subjectivity has characterised the work of a number of female crime writers. Recent theories of maternal subjectivities (developed, for example, in the work of Jessica Benjamin, Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Marianne Hirsch, Brenda O. Daly and Maureen T. Reddy) have departed from the mother-blaming psychoanalytic emphasis of many earlier feminist critics, arguing instead the importance of recuperating the mother's perspective and voice, of disrupting "narratives that silence mothers" and allowing the maternal figure to be humanised. We compare male and female representations of "the guilt of the mother" in a range of crime fiction published from the 1940s to the present, and to analyse some of the ways in which an increasing interest in reclaiming the subjectivity of the mother has been reflected in noir crime novels written by women.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
MFS: Modern Fiction Studies
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/libraryofcongress/pr
Subjects:
?? LITERATURE AND LITERARY THEORYPR ENGLISH LITERATURE ??
ID Code:
26448
Deposited By:
Users 810 not found.
Deposited On:
15 May 2009 15:13
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
11 Sep 2023 13:10