the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

for which only otherworldly punishment is appropriate, while
from another viewpoint, love appears to be the chief motive
that spurs the mother to kill her child rather than remand
her to slavery
2.7.0. The cultural separation between care and anger,
care and self-interest, makes lt lmpossible for mothers to
integrate anger Into thelr act~vity of mothering. In Greek
mythology, Medea and Clytemnestra were consldered non-
maternal because of thelr anger.
7 6
The mother's anger is
consldered lllegltlmate, anger is the antithesis of the
maternal.
Belng angry creates breaks and dlsruptlons in
relationships that challenge soclal structures. Mother-love
is therefore supposed to be cont~nuous and unconditional.
As Rich expresses lt, "Love and anger cannot coexlst
Female anger
threatens the lnstltutlon of motherhood"
(1976 46) Marrlane Hlrsch shares thls vlew
A mother cannot articulate anger as a mother, to
do so she must step out of a culturally
clrcumscrlbed role which commands mothers to be
carlng and nurturrng to others, even at the
expense of themselves. (1989 170)
Should she rebel and express her anger, she would cease to
be maternal, for the essence of the 'maternal' according to
Soclal strictures and psychoanalytic dogma lies in the
service to the interests of the child. Hence, to be angry
2s to assert one's own self, not to subordinate it to the
development of another's self