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Strained Differentiation: Negotiating Grief With Maternal Foundations In Laird Hunt’S Neverhome, Heidie L. Raine

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

The intertwinement of mother-daughter psyches throughout the early developmental process bonds maternal and filial parties up unto differentiation, at which point the child comes to understand her status as an individual and her mother’s status as a separate entity. However, when trauma is introduced midway through the differentiation process, this psychological phenomenon may be hindered, stunting the advanced personal development of the daughter. Abandoned by loss, she may subconsciously fall victim to repressive defenses, insufficient socialization, and destructive behaviors.

In his 2016 novel Neverhome, Laird Hunt explores these psychological factors through a traumatized and unreliable female protagonist situated in …

“Ain’T My Mama’S Broken Heart”: The Mothers And Daughters Of Hillbilly Feminism, Alyssa Dewees

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

The women of country music have long defied the genre's patriarchal associations and used their music as a platform for subversive social messages about gender inequality, and in the past several decades, the country music establishment has grown more willing to alter its image and accommodate these feminist themes. Because country music is marketed and understood by many of its fans as a representation of a lifestyle, this shift in expectations for women’s social roles and possibilities in the genre has an impact on the women who identify themselves with the particular rural, down-home image country music aims to define. …