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This chapter examines recurring tropes of dismemberment and alienation in representations of childbirth in life writing by women. Taking examples from the works of Doris Lessing, Sylvia Plath, and Rachel Cusk, it demonstrates that one common theme is the confrontation between the mother’s need for intimacy and the scientific gaze of the medical institution which assumes full control over her body. Women who have given birth have struggled to articulate their experience in the first person, as their privacy is violated by practices that feel invasive.

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The Hospital as Scene of Childbirth in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Women’s Life Writing

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Alice Braun

摘要

This chapter examines recurring tropes of dismemberment and alienation in representations of childbirth in life writing by women. Taking examples from the works of Doris Lessing, Sylvia Plath, and Rachel Cusk, it demonstrates that one common theme is the confrontation between the mother’s need for intimacy and the scientific gaze of the medical institution which assumes full control over her body. Women who have given birth have struggled to articulate their experience in the first person, as their privacy is violated by practices that feel invasive.