Literature and obstetrics: reading maternal posture in Jacques Ferron's "Little William".

Abstract

Jacques Ferron’s “Little William” is a story of birth and naming in a remote Quebec coastal community. Obstetrical issues and issues of cultural and political survival come together when a French Canadian doctor finds himself obliged to submit to the authority of a country midwife and deliver a baby in the so-called “English position” (or left lateral maternal posture) hitherto unknown to him. In this reading, elements of comparative obstetrical history are integrated with literary and cultural analysis, to reveal complex cross-cultural tensions, not only between French and English, but between institutional obstetrics and traditional midwifery. At the same time, attention is redirected to the figure of the story’s mother and to the “facelessness” of the birth. Parallels are drawn between Ferron’s text and scientific writing, and literary narrative is seen to mimic and at the same time call into question the narratives of obstetrical history.