| Abstract [eng] |
Motherhood is not only an individual woman's experience, it is also a culturally formulated, patriarchal system. It is an institution that undermines a woman's potential and allows her to be controlled. Motherhood is a subject that is increasingly being analysed in fiction from a female perspective, giving a voice to mothers themselves. This thesis is a comparative study, and the comparison is made between one of the most important works on the theme of motherhood in women's literature in French, the novel "Lullaby" (2016) by the Moroccan author Leila Slimani, who lives in France, and the novel "Šulinys" (2018) by the Lithuanian writer Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė, who has received great acclaim. Both novels are a creative response to shocking events that suggest existential content, inarticulate experiences and social issues that have not yet been thought through, and that need a wider and more ambivalent space than the media. Both novels therefore create a public discursive space for articulating hitherto marginalised aspects of human experience. This thesis analyses the controversial experience of motherhood, examines what aspects of this experience are actualized and why, and asks what the motif of infanticide symbolises in both novels. It draws on critical theory of motherhood, on the conflict between motherhood as a life experience and motherhood as an institution as discussed by Adrienne Rich, and on the theoretical texts of Elisabeth Badinter, Catherine Rottenberg and Julie Rodgers. |
