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Misconceptions: Loss And Melancholia In Poetry Of Miscarriage, Stillbirth And Abortion, Donna Yannakis
Misconceptions: Loss And Melancholia In Poetry Of Miscarriage, Stillbirth And Abortion, Donna Yannakis
Theses : Honours
This thesis argues that cultural and discursive attitudes towards miscarriage, stillbirth and abortion attribute maternal blame to these losses and silence the expression of grief over them. It further argues that, following pregnancy loss, this silence and blame, coupled with the veneration and discursive production of motherhood as a woman's biological and psychical destiny, produce 'symptoms' that, according to Freud, are a sign of a pathological melancholia. I suggest, however, that these symptoms - self-reproach and impoverishment of the ego as responses to pregnancy loss, do not necessarily indicate a woman's pathological failure to resolve loss but reflect the social …