Imagining Motherhood in Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Literature [electronic resource] / by Abigail L. Palko.

Introduction: Embryonic Beginnings -- "A mother-of-sufferer": Subversive Mothering in the Caribbean and Irish Traditions -- Part I: Rejecting Motherhood -- The Traumatized Not-Mother -- The Motherless Not-Mother -- Part II: Redefining Motherhood -- The Lesbian Daughter -- The Lesbian Mother -- Conclusion: "If you can't trust me with choice, how can you trust me with a child?" -- Works Cited .

Imagining Motherhood in Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Literature undertakes a comparative transnational reading to develop more expansive literary models of good mothering. Abigail L. Palko argues that Irish and Caribbean literary representations of non-normative mothering practices do not reflect transgressive or dangerous mothering but are rather cultural negotiations of the definition of a good mother. This original book demonstrates the sustained commitment to countering the dominant ideologies of maternal self-sacrifice foundational to both Irish and Caribbean nationalist rhetoric, offering instead the possibility of integrating maternal agency into an effective model of female citizenship.