PORTRAYAL OF MOTHERHOOD IN MODERN LITERATURE

Abstract

Motherhood has long occupied a privileged place in literary imagination. It has been represented as tenderness, sacrifice, origin, moral authority and emotional continuity, yet modern literature repeatedly questions the simplicity of such representations. This thesis, titled Portrayal of Motherhood in Modern Literature, examines the changing image of the mother in selected modern literary texts and argues that motherhood is not merely a biological function or sentimental ideal but a complex social, cultural and psychological construct. The major finding of the study is that modern literature transforms the mother from an idealized figure into a more complex and human subject. Modern texts do not simply reject motherhood; rather, they challenge the ideological uses of motherhood that demand silence, obedience and self-erasure from women. The mother in modern literature becomes a site where love and power, body and culture, freedom and duty, memory and trauma are brought into conflict. By reading motherhood through feminist and psychoanalytic frameworks, the thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of women's representation in modern literature and highlights the continuing importance of maternal identity in literary and cultural studies.