the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

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- the ways in which feminine motherhood socially conditioned
mothers through reductive images; identified women only with
their mother-role, valuing them only for their chlld-bearlng
capacltles; demanded a renunciation of aims and interests of
mothers, inculcating in them the abillty to relate to others
only through their famillal role; instilled In them a deslre
for sons rather than daughters so that the patriarchal rule
was perpetuated; confined mothers to the domestic sphere
creating 'The Angel in the House', asserted that mother -
love was supposed to be unconditional as female anger
threatened the institution of motherhood, used religion,
myth, customs and rituals to determine familial structures
that subordinate women.
6.1.2. The thlrd chapter --- 'Feminist Motherhood' ---
highlighted how the conflict between women's desires and the
domlnant values of motherhood which made women volce then
protest led to a change ln attitude towards motherhood,
culminating ln 'femlnlst mothers'. Thls chapter dealt wlth
the revolt of the protagonlsts agalnst their mothers whlch
was not so much a personal attack on the mothers as it was
against the lnstitutlon they represented; the debunking of
the maternal instlnct through the protagonist's questioning
or relection of the maternal role foisted on her, the
attempt of the protagonist to break free from the image of
the angel in the house by taking up a career, the veering of