Motherhood in American Novels: Investigating Some Sociological and Psychological Factors of Oppression in Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina

Motherhood and mothering has been one of the issues that feminists, psychologists and sociologists have always returned to in their studies due to its importance. In addition, writers have started to explore motherhood experiences in their literary works. The purpose of this research is to examine motherhood in Bastard out of Carolina (1992) of Dorothy Allison, according to Beauvoir, Rich, and Morris's theories about motherhood, which tried to analyze and explain the mothering experience of women confronting gender, and class oppressions. Bastard out of Carolina is the story of a teenage girl who became a mother and had to fight different problems in order to provide her daughters. Sociologists, psychologists and feminists have analyzed a mother’s actual experience of child rearing to discover the ways through which society and culture have influenced mother's act of mothering. After applying theories of Beauvoir, Rich and Anne Morris on Bastard out of Carolina, the oppressions a teenage working-class mother confronts during her mothering in South Carolina were illustrated. Poverty, working so hard for survival, living in a patriarchal society, lacking mother's love or a man's support, and problematic partner relationship were among the obstacles that working-class mothers in a region like South Carolina were enduring

کلیدواژه ها:

motherhood ، Bastard out of Carolina ، oppression ، mothering