Aspectos de la representación de la maternidad en la novela femenina

Abstract

This paper analyses the fictional presentation of childbirth in the British female novel from the 1960s onwards. Starting with the pioneer work of Doris Lessing and Margaret Drabble and the shift from childbirth as seen by a spectator to childbirth as experienced by the female subject, we move on to discuss the role of female biology in Fay Weldon and her creation of new maternal archetypes; the quasi-mythic pregnancy of a man turned woman in Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve; and Eva Figes's recording of English history in The Seven Ages through the ways women have given birth.