Metaphors of Motherhood in Marina Warner’s Fiction and Short Fiction

This volume oversees the fluctuating, but close relationship of motherhood studies, maternal theory, and feminism in Marina Warner’s fiction and short stories. Originating in Chantal Zabus’ analysis of the controversial Sycorax and Ariel in Indigo or, Mapping the Waters, the phrase “sisterly continuum” has inspired this book’s focus on a parallel “motherly continuum” linking and animating the myriad female characters of the most prolific twentieth- and twenty- first- century British cultural historian and novelist. By tracing and analyzing the wide variety of fictional mothers and their maternal practices through the lens of various feminist and maternal theories, this book attempts to deconstruct the false binary oppositions of “good” versus “bad” mother, “biological/ birth” versus foster or adoptive mother, and most importantly, that of motherhood as a patriarchal institution versus mothering as an identity and an experience. Thanks to her fictional exploration of the process of becoming a mother, whether physically, socially, or mentally, and of becoming a sexually mature adult thanks to mothering, Warner’s alternatives to conventional aspects of motherhood offer a wide array of maternal metaphors that nuance the concept of mother and traverse the borders of class, race, and geography. As exiled goddesses and witches, female academicians and mistresses fight their way through colonialism, racism, and misogyny, their paradoxical status as mothers and ambiguous relationships to their daughters and sons bring an extra layer of meaning to their experiences, identities, and perspectives.