Moving Beyond Myths of Motherhood in Life Writing: Paradoxical Affects and Narrative Form in Heti's Motherhood and Cusk's A Life's Work within a Culture of Self-Help

Details

Supervisors

De Bruyn, Ben

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation germaniques, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

enThis dissertation examines how contemporary maternal narratives in life writing challenge dominant representations of motherhood. It analyses as case studies Sheila Heti’s autofiction Motherhood and Rachel Cusk’s memoir A Life’s Work. The two works differ in genre and offer a different perspective: Motherhood presents the wondering of reproductive decision-making, and A Life’s Work the struggles and disillusion of early motherhood. Situated at the intersection of affect studies (e.g. Massumi; Ngai; Ahmed), contemporary literary studies (e.g. Houser), and motherhood studies (e.g. Rich; Ruddick; Hays), this study also draws on scholarships on life writing (e.g. Smith et al.), self-help hermeneutics (e.g. Beth Blum), and therapeutic discourse (e.g. Dapra; Pascuzzi et al.). It examines how both texts represent affects and challenge the emotional norms associated with idealized motherhood. By analyzing affects alongside the narrative forms through which they are articulated, the dissertation argues that ambivalence is formally produced through fragmentation, repetition, altered temporality, and disrupted narrative progression. The study further investigates how the texts engage with and resist self-help hermeneutics and therapeutic writing, mirroring their reflective functions while refusing their promises of self-betterment, transformation, emotional regulation, and resolution. In this respect, Motherhood and A Life’s Work can be understood as alternative narratives to both dominant myths of motherhood and self-help discourses. Finally, the dissertation situates these literary representations within broader contemporary discourses surrounding reproductive choice, family structures, and the persistence of maternal norms. It argues that, by foregrounding unresolved and socially less legible affects, Heti and Cusk contribute to a reconfiguration of maternal narratives as spaces of enduring ambivalence rather than spaces of certainty and fulfillment.