‘괴물-아이’의 엄마 되기: 『다섯째 아이』와 모성서사의 비판적 잠재성

Abstract

This essay reads Doris Lessing’s maternal narrative in The Fifth Child as a critique of the myth of the autonomous individual and family, claiming that the novel’s depictions of motherhood as institution and as experience invite us to rethink the main premises of the neoliberal gender regime. In the first section, I examine how the novel reveals the fundamental vulnerability of life facing the ills of society outside the Lovatt family circle. It turns out that what eventually supports their happy life is nothing but sheer luck, while it constantly demands maternal sacrifice and loss of agency. Recuperation of maternal agency, however, is not what this novel’s critical stance aims at. Rather, as I argue in the second section, ethical dimensions of mothering emerge at the pivotal point of the narrative when Harriet takes the responsibility of caring for Ben and becomes his mother despite the impossibility of motherly love. Unlike her husband, Harriet cannot deny the claims of trans-individual connection with Ben. While this may be taken as yet another instance of self-sacrifice and subjection, Harrient’s acceptance of Ben indicates the potential of maternal subjectivity that debunks the myths of the autonomous individual and moves towards communal notions of self and society.