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Trauma and Motherhood
in Contemporary
Literature and Culture
Edited by
Laura Lazzari
Nathalie Ségeral
Trauma and Motherhood in Contemporary
Laura Lazzari • Nathalie Ségeral
Editors
Trauma and
Motherhood in
Contemporary
Editors
Laura Lazzari Nathalie Ségeral
Catholic University of America The University of Sydney
Washington, DC, USA Sydney, NSW, Australia
Sasso Corbaro Foundation for the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa
Medical Humanities Honolulu, HI, USA
Bellinzona, TI, Switzerland
ISBN 978-3-030-77406-6 ISBN 978-3-030-77407-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77407-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all the scholars, authors and translators who, dur-
ing a global pandemic, promptly contributed to this volume with insight-
ful chapters on trauma and motherhood.
We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their generous feedback
and to our editors Allie Troyanos and Paul Smith Jesudas at Palgrave
Macmillan for all the assistance they provided. Their suggestions were
greatly appreciated and helped us improve the content and the focus of
this book.
This manuscript spans from a conference we co-organized at the
Catholic University of America and from two interdisciplinary roundtables
on “New Representations of Motherhood in the Literature of the New
Millennium” organized by Dr. Lazzari at the Northeast Modern Language
Association Annual Convention in Washington DC in March 2019. The
papers presented and the discussions that followed convinced us of the
importance of editing such a volume. For this reason, we would like to
thank all those who participated in these conferences and contributed to
making them possible.
Special thanks go to Dr. Claudia Bornholdt and Flor Argueta for their
logistical help. We would also like to acknowledge Emanuele Amendola—
Director of the Istituto Culturale Italiano in Washington DC—and the
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures of the Catholic
University of America for their financial support in organizing the confer-
ence “Trauma and Recovery: Challenges to Motherhood in Contemporary
Literature and Culture” on March 7, 2019. Finally, Dr. Ségeral is grateful
to the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa for their generous support of her
v
vi Acknowledgments
travel and research related to the book project through the Endowment
for the Humanities Summer fellowship and the Spring 2019 Paris Resident
Director position of their Study Abroad Program.
To our families and children.
Contents

Trauma and Recovery: New Challenges to Motherhood in
Contemporary Literature and Culture 1
Laura Lazzari and Nathalie Ségeral
Part I Pregnancy, Childbirth and Trauma 11

Understanding the Trauma of Pervasive Pregnancy Denial in
L’enfant que je n’attendais pas 13
Julie Anne Rodgers

Salvaging the Bones Means Fighting for Reproductive Justice:
Jesmyn Ward’s Literary Representations of the Trauma
Produced by Attacks on Reproductive Rights, Comprehensive
Sex Education, and Access to Maternal Health Care 31
Mary Catherine Foltz

Social Trauma and the Anti-Maternal Body in Diane a les
épaules 59
Holly Runde
vii
viii Contents
Part II Trauma and Disrupted Mother-Child Bonds 85

Trauma Behind Bars: Maternal Dilemma in Rossella Schillaci’s
Ninna nanna prigioniera 87
Giulia Po DeLisle

“Pour dire la souffrance des innocents?” Problematics of the
Madonna-Son Trope in Representing Trauma in Philippe
Aractingi’s Under the Bombs and Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum105
Maya Aghasi

Traumatic Memory and Narrative Healing in Contemporary
Diasporic Chinese British Women’s Writing129
Fang Tang
Part III New Challenges with ART 161

Tragedy, In Vitro: The Function of Reproductive Science in
Simon Stone’s Adaptation of Yerma163
Bryan Betancur
have an enterprise:” Transnational Surrogacy, Neoliberal

“I
Repropreneurship, and the Potential Trauma of Clinical Labor
in Zippi Brand Frank’s Google Baby185
Sarah Fisher Davis
Trauma for Artificial Women: Monstrous, Cybernetics, and

No
Anomalous Mothers in Current Latin American Science Fiction213
María José Gutiérrez
Index239
Notes on Contributors
Maya Aghasi is an Assistant Professor at the American University of

Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative
Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she
spent a year as a doctoral research fellow at the Center for Women
and Gender Studies. Her research studies how issues of globalization
and migration challenge identity politics and social and cultural
modes of being. She works in English, Arabic and French, focusing
in particular on intersectional gendered experiences in Arab-American
narratives as well as those from the Middle East.
Bryan Betancur is an Assistant Professor and Spanish language coordi-
nator at City University of New York – Bronx Community College,
USA. His principal area of research focuses on gender and family dynamics
in early modern Spanish theater.
Sarah Fisher Davis is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Stony Brook
University, USA. Her research interests include twentieth- and twenty-
first-century American and Anglophone literature, film and graphic narra-
tives viewed through the lenses of environmental justice, gender studies
and embodiment. She is working on her dissertation tentatively titled
“Detection: U.S. Land, Body, and Text as Sites of Nuclearity,” which
examines contemporary representations of nuclear radiation and its linger-
ing corporeal and ecological threats in a variety of media and multi-
modal forms.
ix
x Notes on Contributors
Hernán J. Droguett is a freelance translator who works on both com-

mercial and literary projects. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics from
Kent State University, and an MA in Latin American Literature from
Catholic University in Washington DC.
Mary Catherine Foltz is Associate Professor of English and Women,
Gender and Sexuality Studies at Lehigh University, USA. She is the author
of Contemporary American Literature and Excremental Culture: American
Sh*t (Palgrave Macmillan 2020). Her primary areas of research are post-45
U.S. literature, queer fiction and theory and waste studies. She serves as a
reviewer for the Year’s Work in English Studies, producing substantial
review essays of literary criticism published each year on contemporary
U.S. fiction.
María José Gutiérrez a native from Spain, received a Ph.D in Hispanic
Literatures and Cultures from The Catholic University of America
(Washington, DC). Her main areas of interest are Pensinsular and Latin
American Contemporary Science Fiction. Through a comparative
approach of cultural production, she explores how the modality gives vis-
ibility to specific issues of migration, economic injustice and ecological
imbalance that the process of globalization entails. She is also conducting
research in science fiction and feminism. Gutiérrez holds a Doctoral
degree from the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain, in Spanish Literature with a
specialization in the study of the short novel genre in popular collections
of periodicals of the early twentieth century. She has a number of publica-
tions in academic journals. Before coming to USA, she taught courses on
Spanish language and culture in universities in Spain, China, Russia,
Uzbekistan and at the Instituto Cervantes in Italy.
Giulia Po DeLisle is Associate Teaching Professor and Coordinator of
Italian Language and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Lowell,
USA, where she teaches classes of language, cinema and literature. She
holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a specialization in Italian
Literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
She is the author of Scrivere la diversità: autobiografia e politica in Clara
Sereni (Cesati 2012), and the translator of works of poetry, short stories
and essays. She co-translated the bilingual edition of Eugenia Paulicelli’s
Rosa Genoni. La moda è una cosa seria (Deleyva 2016) and has written
articles on Italian women filmmakers Cristina Comencini, Alina Marazzi
and Susanna Nicchiarelli. Her fields of interest include women’s studies,
life writing, contemporary Italian literature and Italian cinema.
Notes on Contributors xi
Laura Lazzari is a researcher in the field of motherhood studies and the

medical humanities. She is a scholar at the Catholic University of America,
at Franklin University Switzerland and at the Sasso Corbaro Foundation
for the Medical Humanities, Switzerland. She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D.
from the University of Lausanne, a Master of Studies in Women’s Studies
from the University of Oxford and an M.A. in Teaching from the SUPSI
(University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland). She
taught at the universities of Lausanne, Fribourg and Franklin in
Switzerland, at George Washington University and at the Catholic
University of America in the USA. She is the 2015–2016 recipient of the
AAUW (American Association of University Women) International
Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Italian at Georgetown
University. Lazzari is an affiliate member of the Motherhood Project at
Maynooth University and of the Center for the Study of Contemporary
Women’s Writing (CCWW) at the University of London. Her current
research revolves around representations of pregnancy, birth and postpar-
tum in Western contemporary cultures and societies. She has written a
monograph on Lucrezia Marinella in 2010. In the last few years, she has
been working extensively on motherhood and taught courses, written
articles and organized interdisciplinary conferences related to this topic.
Among her publications is a special volume on “To Be or Not to Be a
Mother: Choice, Refusal, Reluctance and Conflict. Motherhood and
Female Identity in Italian Literature and Culture” (intervalla 1, 2016).
She is working on a textbook on Reproductive Justice and Literature for
Palgrave Macmillan.
Julie Anne Rodgers is Associate Professor in French at Maynooth
University, UK. Her research focuses on Quebec literature and culture
and contemporary women’s writing and film in French. She is working on
the production and reception of maternal counter-narratives. This incor-
porates the study of a wide range of mothering experiences that do not
correspond to the normative, patriarchal script of motherhood. Rodgers
has written widely on motherhood and mothering. Selected articles are as
follows: “Mother-Daughter Relations in Francine Noël” (Francofonia,
2009); “The Difficulty of Exercising Selfhood Alongside Motherhood in
Ying Chen” (International Journal of Canadian Studies, 2012);
“Transgressive Mothering in Eliette Abécassis” (Irish Journal of French
Studies, 2012); and “Voluntary Childlessness in Lucie Joubert” (Women:
A Cultural Review, 2018). In 2019, Rodgers co-edited a special issue of
xii Notes on Contributors
the Irish Journal of French Studies with Elise Hugueny-Léger on parental

mourning. Rodgers is a working member of the Motherhood Project
research cluster based at Maynooth University.
Holly Runde is a Lectrice at the Université Paris-Est Créteil, France. She
is working on her book project based on her dissertation defended at the
University of Virginia in 2018.
Nathalie Ségeral is Lecturer in French Studies at the University of
Sydney, Australia, and an Associate Professor of French at the University
of Hawai’i at Mānoa, USA. She holds a Ph.D. in French and Francophone
Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her
research, teaching and publications revolve around issues of gender,
trauma, motherhood, childlessness and (post)memory in narratives of the
Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, as well as in contemporary France
and the Francophone South Pacific. She is the French translator of David
Chappell’s Le Réveil kanak: la montée du nationalisme en Nouvelle-
Calédonie (New Caledonia University Press, 2017) and her latest articles
have appeared in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Crossways
Journal, Jewish Culture and History, The Journal of Holocaust Research,
Sextant, The Journal of the Motherhood Initiative and Women in French
Studies. In November 2019, she organized a roundtable on “Reframing
Academic Motherhood” at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language
Association Convention in San Diego.
Fang Tang is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities at
Yangtze University, China. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative
Literature from the University of Nottingham, UK, in 2017. Her main
research areas include diasporic literature and cultural studies, comparative
literature, Asian American literature, women’s writing and postcolonial
studies. Her main publications include Literary Fantasy in Contemporary
Chinese Diasporic Women’s Literature (New York and London, 2019),
“Nostalgia and Exile in the Diasporic Literature of Mainland-Born
Taiwanese” (2020), “Review of Transpacific Attachments: Sex Work,
Media Networks, and Affective Histories of Chineseness” (2019),
“Features and Functions of Paratexts in Series of Western Translation
Studies in China” (2019), “Reconstruction of History and Cultural
Memory in Contemporary Chinese Diasporic Women’s Life Writing”
(2018), and “Beyond the Borders: The Construction of Home in Chinese
Diasporic Women’s Writing” (2017).
Trauma and Recovery: New Challenges
to Motherhood in Contemporary Literature
and Culture
Laura Lazzari and Nathalie Ségeral
The present volume repositions motherhood studies in the twenty-first

century through the lens of trauma theory by exploring the new chal-
lenges surrounding conception, pregnancy, and postpartum experiences in
a transnational literary, filmic, and theatric context. This collection of
Supplementary Information The online version of this chapter (https://doi.

org/10.1007/978-3-030-77407-3_1) contains supplementary material, which is
available to authorized users.
L. Lazzari
Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA
Sasso Corbaro Foundation for the Medical Humanities,
Bellinzona, TI, Switzerland
N. Ségeral (*)
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
e-mail: nathalie.segeral@sydney.edu.au
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
L. Lazzari, N. Ségeral (eds.), Trauma and Motherhood in
Contemporary Literature and Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77407-3_1
2 L. LAZZARI AND N. SÉGERAL
chapters brings together contributions from established and emerging

scholars coming from a wide range of geographical areas and fields: social
sciences, modern languages, literature, creative writing, journalism, media
studies, medicine, and biology. This project comes in the wake of current
discussions around motherhood: France’s recent political debate around
the legalization of medically assisted procreation for single and lesbian
women, the recent Italian campaign pro-fertility and the wave of protests
it generated, the different laws on assisted reproductive technology, ethi-
cal discussions around surrogacy, and debates surrounding reproduction
and motherhood brought about by medical and ethical developments.
The various contributions in this volume explore how the traditional
notion of “motherhood” is constantly redefined and challenged.
This book project had its inception at a one-day symposium we orga-
nized at the Catholic University of America in March 2019, titled “Trauma
and Recovery: New Challenges to Motherhood in Contemporary
Literature and Culture,” along with two roundtables on “New
Representations of Motherhood in the Literature of the New Millennium”
held by Laura Lazzari at the 2019 Northeast Modern Language Association
in Washington DC. The conference and the two roundtables brought
together scholars from various countries and disciplines to engage with
the topic of motherhood and trauma and the various ways in which bio-
technologies, social and family changes, law, politics, and religion inform
the representations of motherhood in twenty-first-century literature and
culture. The overwhelming interest generated by the calls for papers, pre-
sentations, and ensuing discussions highlighted the urgency to follow up
with a published volume to fill this gap in the intersection of trauma the-
ory with motherhood studies and contemporary literature and culture.
The experience of motherhood often remains taken for granted as a
natural and uneventful “destiny” for women, transcending borders and
cultures. In recent years, many scholars, writers, and artists have tried to
challenge these common conceptions (Hirsch 1989; Letherby 2002;
Throsby 2004; Gedalof 2009; Edwards 2016; Averis and Hollis-Touré
2016; O’Reilly 2016). Voices of traumatic or non-traditional motherhood
experiences are only beginning to be heard.
In the field of Francophone studies, several women’s voices have
emerged since the turn of the century on this topic: Linda Lê (2011) and
Jane Sautière (2008) have both published autobiographical texts detailing
their author’s arguments for remaining childless, while Cécile Wajsbrot’s
autofictional narratives (2005, 2011) touch on the narrator’s childlessness
TRAUMA AND RECOVERY: NEW CHALLENGES TO MOTHERHOOD… 3
as a way to put an end to the cycle of Holocaust post-memory. French

Holocaust survivor Marceline Loridan-Ivens (2018) published an episto-
lary text in which she discusses her inability to become a mother in the
wake of the Auschwitz trauma and Françoise Guérin, a French writer and
psychoanalyst specializing in the mother-infant bond, published Maternité
[Motherhood] (2018), a tragically disturbing novel detailing a woman’s
spiraling into severe postpartum psychosis as a result of transgenerational
trauma. In Italian literature, after a revolt against maternity (Amoia 2000),
a new front has appeared: women who uphold their right to become
mothers at any cost (Mazzoni 2012). On the other hand, in the new
media, childless women are given the opportunity to fill an identity void.
The project Lunàdigas gives a voice to childfree women, often considered
incomplete and scorned by Italian society (Nesler and Piga 2015).
In this perspective, this volume seeks to cast a new critical light on
motherhood studies through the lens of trauma studies, thus challenging
commonly held notions of motherhood as the ultimate fulfillment and as
a universal journey. More precisely, as assisted-reproduction technologies
have become common tools in the motherhood experience, thereby rede-
fining conception and mothering practices, we believe that it is a pressing
issue to re-read motherhood through the traumatic affects that can be
linked to conception, pregnancy, and birth. Thus, the contributions that
we have selected for this volume investigate different aspects related to
maternal trauma and recovery in literary, cinematic, and theatrical works
produced in the twenty-first century, exploring issues of motherhood in
contexts such as migration, incarceration, natural catastrophes, race and
minorities, war and genocide, issues of (post)-memory, non-motherhood,
and voluntary childlessness, as well as casting light on some rarely
discussed aspects of motherhood, such as pregnancy denial, infertility,
postpartum depression, physical or mental illness, adoption, IVF, surro-
gacy, miscarriage, abortion, involuntary childlessness, infanticide, and
motherhood in the digital age.
The title of this chapter echoes Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman’s
major study, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From
Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (1992), thus situating our volume in a
psychoanalytical framework. While trauma studies have been booming for
the past 25 years since the publication of Cathy Caruth’s ground-breaking
study, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1996),
surprisingly little critical attention has been given to the intersection of
motherhood and trauma. The present volume aims at bridging this gap, as
well as bringing to the forefront marginalized maternal experiences

and voices.
In seeking to investigate experiences of trauma and recovery related to
motherhood in contemporary literature, film, and the arts in an interdisci-
plinary and transnational perspective, we argue for a new approach to
motherhood studies through the lens of trauma, allowing for the inclusion
of marginalized—when not altogether silenced—maternal narratives.
Combining trauma studies with motherhood studies provides a new angle
of approach challenging stereotypical notions of motherhood as the ulti-
mate fulfillment or as catharsis—especially in the wake of historical catas-
trophe. Over four decades ago, Adrienne Rich’s essay Of Woman Born:
Motherhood as Experience & Institution (1976) pushed readers to recon-
sider motherhood as an embodied practice and a structural problem.
Rich’s work, followed by the emergence of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality
Studies, encouraged literary scholars to rethink representations of mothers
and mothering, as well as the ways literary texts have shaped the cultural
politics of motherhood. This turn and the recent rise in motherhood stud-
ies have been marked by a number of field-changing studies (see McCartin
Wearn 2008; Almond 2010; Stone 2011—to name just a few).
In her 2018 Los Angeles Review of Books essay, “Is Motherhood a
Genre?,” Sarah Blackwood analyzes the unprecedented number of recently
published successful novels, memoirs, and self-help books devoted to the
topic of contemporary mothering in the English-speaking world (Nelson
2015; Heti 2018; Druckerman 2014). Blackwood points out that critical
conversation around these texts fails to take into account their great
generic differences. In stark contrast to this booming production of par-
enting advice literature in English, traumatic motherhood experiences
related to marginalized experiences such as mothering in jail, pregnancy
denial, infertility, artificial wombs, and mothering in developing countries
or situations of violent historical upheavals remain hardly investigated in
volumes that deal with miscellaneous literary, filmic, and theatrical analy-
ses. Some of these aspects have started to be discussed in recent works
(Eljdupovic and Jaremko Bromwick 2013; Takševa and Sgoutas 2015;
Hogeveen and Minaker 2015; Lind and Deveau 2017), albeit not through
the lens of literary and filmic analysis. In this perspective, our collection of
essays sets out to cast a new light on this on-going conversation by bring-
ing the focus on the challenges brought about by reproductive technolo-
gies and ethical debates surrounding them in a transnational context.
More precisely, most contributions explore the emotional consequences of
these current issues through the lens of trauma, resilience, and “working
through” theories, engaging with a transnational corpus drawn from the
five continents and spanning topics as diverse and little discussed as preg-
nancy denial, surrogacy, voluntary or involuntary childlessness, the inter-
section of racism and motherhood, carceral mothering practices, and
mothering through wars and migration.
British psychoanalyst, Jacqueline Rose, proceeds from what she terms
“a simple argument”:
that motherhood is, in Western discourse, the place in our culture where we
lodge, or rather bury, the reality of our own conflicts, of what it means to be
fully human. It is the ultimate scapegoat for our personal and political fail-
ings, for everything that is wrong in the world, which it becomes the task—
unrealizable, of course—of mothers to repair. (2018, I)
The double bind and conflicting injunctions that ensue epitomize the
intrinsic relationship between motherhood and trauma, on which each
one of the contributions included in this volume casts a different light.
Part I is devoted to traumatic experiences surrounding pregnancy and
childbirth. In the chapter, “Understanding the Trauma of Pervasive
Pregnancy Denial in L’Enfant que je n’attendais pas,” Julie Rodgers exam-
ines an aspect of motherhood that remains mostly silenced: pregnancy
denial and the unavoidable trauma that accompanies it. Pregnancy denial
refers to the condition in which a woman remains unconscious of her
pregnancy for a few months or, in the present case, until the birth. The
denial of pregnancy usually results in very few pregnancy symptoms and
hardly any physical transformation. Rodgers studies these disembodied
pregnancies by focusing on the French tele-film L’enfant que je n’attendais
pas, directed by Bruno Garcia (2019). She analyzes the various forms of
trauma that arise from such a cryptic pregnancy, highlighting that the
trauma is not only limited to the new mother but also affects the immedi-
ate family and the newborn whom no one expected. This chapter also
considers the role played by society in the reinforcement of the trauma,
through ostracization and criminalization, and demonstrates the urgent
need and educational potential for screen representations of this rarely
discussed phenomenon.
Then, in the chapter “Salvaging the Bones Means Fighting for
Reproductive Justice: Jesmyn Ward’s Literary Representations of the
Trauma Produced by Attacks on Reproductive Rights, Comprehensive
Sex Education, and Access to Maternal Health Care,” Mary Catherine

Foltz shifts the focus to another kind of trauma: that of the intersection of
race and motherhood, through a study of Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones
as a contribution to the reproductive justice movement and black femi-
nists’ critiques of middle-class white feminists’ limited focus on abortion
rights, through a portrayal of one family’s preparation for Hurricane
Katrina. By narrating the physical and emotional traumas produced by
institutions that fail to value black mothers and their children, Foltz argues
that Ward calls readers to respond to the deaths and devaluation of black
mothers as well as the disenfranchisement of their children through a
reproductive justice paradigm in which women of color are empowered to
make decisions about their own reproductive healthcare and provide lead-
ership in transforming medical, educational, and familial institutions to
meet their needs.
The following chapter, titled “Social Trauma and the Anti-Maternal
Body in Diane a les épaules” (directed by Fabien Gorgeart), revolves
around the sometimes complicated and painful path to motherhood by
analyzing a 2017 French TV comedy about surrogacy. Holly Runde exam-
ines how the film uses the protagonist’s disinterest in forging a moral
relationship to her changing body as a way of challenging the supposedly
inherent connection between carrying a child to term and becoming a
“mother.” This paper challenges the French legal and feminist discourses
against surrogacy’s legalization by arguing that surrogacy is not necessarily
an exploitative and traumatizing procedure.
Part II of this volume, focusing on trauma disrupting the mother-child
bond, opens with a chapter devoted to a highly marginalized topic: that of
mothering behind bars. In her chapter, “Trauma Behind Bars: Maternal
Dilemma in Rossella Schillaci’s Ninna nanna prigioniera,” Giulia Po
DeLisle takes us to female Italian prisons through a documentary, Ninna
nanna prigioniera, delving into the carceral realm to investigate the expe-
rience of mothers who choose to keep their newborns and young children
with them behind bars. The documentary focuses on an intimate maternal
dilemma that broadens the scope of female representation in Italian cin-
ema, while also questioning the children’s experiences and the impact that
the imprisonment might cause on their development. This paper aims to
open a new discourse on a subtler aspect of motherhood that has been
ignored for many years. In a society that too easily labels mothers for their
choices and behaviors, is a woman who decides to keep her child in prison
a “good” or a “bad” mother?
The following two chapters focus on motherhood and trauma in societ-

ies where such matters are still silenced: Lebanon and the Chinese dias-
pora in the UK. In “‘Pour dire la souffrance des innocents?’ Problematics
of the Madonna-Son Trope in Representing Trauma in Philippe Aractingi’s
Under the Bombs and Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum,” Maya Aghasi explores
motherhood and migration through two Lebanese films and seeks to
understand and humanize the global phenomenon of migration in the
global south through its effects on mothers, child refugees, and migrants.
She argues that Capernaum courageously moves away from the masculine
themes of war and violence to confront viewers on maternal terms, forcing
them to question how migrancy troubles our very understanding of moth-
erhood. United in their condition of being undocumented migrants, both
mother characters embody the challenges to motherhood that go unspo-
ken in an age of increased migration, movement, and borders.
In her chapter, “Traumatic Memory and Narrative Healing in
Contemporary Diasporic Chinese British Women’s Writing,” Fang Tang
explores the literary representations of traumatic experiences of (non-)
motherhood in contemporary diasporic Chinese-British women’s writing,
against the background of dire statistics that over 120,000 abandoned
baby girls have been adopted by overseas couples and that probably as
many have been killed at birth. By narrating these stories, the author,
Xinran, helps these Chinese birth mothers to develop an imaginary con-
nection with their children. Telling stories becomes a narrative strategy to
recover from the trauma of infanticide and forced child abandonment
through desire and reconstruction. Hong Ying’s novels engage with the
trauma of being an illegitimate child in rural China and the disrupted
mother-daughter bond it created for the narrator. Tang contends that
these maternal narratives, in which the authors-narrators cast themselves
as both storytellers and listeners, exemplify the cultural traumatic memo-
ries and collective tragedies of China’s past.
The last part of this volume focuses on the new emotional, practical,
and psychological challenges brought about by assisted reproductive tech-
nologies and the difficult road to recovery accompanying the post-
pregnancy period. In “Tragedy, In Vitro: The Function of Reproductive
Science in Simon Stone’s Adaptation of Yerma,” Bryan Betancur explores
the dehumanizing aspects of IVF and other reproduction technologies
and the limits of science through a narrative reminiscent of a Greek
tragedy.
Echoing and complementing Runde’s contribution, the following

chapter is titled “‘I have an enterprise:’ Transnational Surrogacy, Neoliberal
Repropreneurship, and the Potential Trauma of Clinical Labor in Zippi
Brand Frank’s Google Baby.” In it, Sarah Fisher Davis examines an Israeli
film on surrogacy and the commodification of bodies. She uses Charlotte
Halmø Kroløkke and Saumya Pant’s concept of the “repropreneur” as a
specific term for citizens, especially females, who move from “passive” or
unproductive economic subjects to “active,” profitable workers through
reproductive services.
The last contribution in this volume is titled “No Trauma for Artificial
Women: Monstrous, Cybernetics, and Anomalous Mothers in Current
Latin American Science Fiction.” In it, María José Gutiérrez shifts the
focus to robots and cyborgs (organic-artificial hybrids), as defined within
the monster category for the purpose of this study, building on Mabel
Moraña. Taking the ideas of Donna Haraway in “A Cyborg Manifesto” as
a starting point, along with Chela Sandoval’s Cyber Consciousness con-
cept in “Cyborg Feminism,” Gutiérrez contends that the cyborg-monster,
when conceived from a gendered perspective, is redefined as a metaphor
that empowers women and challenges the roles that have historically been
assigned to them through their child-bearing and maternal functions.
Thus, science fiction provides a path to recovery from some of the trauma
caused by motherhood.
Without any claim to completeness, the volume offers a collection of
essays that investigate nine case studies of trauma and recovery around
motherhood in contemporary literature and culture. In the tradition of
motherhood studies, this publication brings together various cultural con-
texts by using different theoretical methodologies. Each paper investigates
challenging experiences of motherhood and mothering and/or highlights
the strategies employed to overcome a traumatic event, as they are repre-
sented in a selection of literary texts and films from the last 20 years. Each
contribution adds to the field of motherhood studies by bringing to the
forefront marginalized aspects and narratives of motherhood through the
lens of trauma theory.
This volume is accompanied by an online creative supplement that
enhances the conversation opened by the issues raised in the essays, by
engaging with them in a non-academic mode. This creative section is
composed of texts written specially for this publication, followed by a
selection of previously published excerpts of their work translated into
English for the first time, along with interviews with authors and directors.
Although they have been adapted for each author, the questions asked in
the interviews are similar and are meant to create a virtual roundtable in
order to open the discussion on important and sensitive topics related to
the trauma and stigma connected to experiences of miscarriage, infertility,
and childlessness. The creative part includes conversations with Canadian
writer and journalist Alexandra Kimball on miscarriage, infertility, and
third-party reproduction; with Eleonora Mazzoni, the author of Le difet-
tose [The Defectives], an Italian novel engaging with the trauma of infer-
tility and IVF; with Marta Baiocchi, a scientist and novelist whose fictions
stage dystopic reproduction narratives; and with Nicoletta Nesler and
Marilisa Piga, directors and instigators of the Lunàdigas project and docu-
mentary centering on voluntarily childless women, whose aim is to break
the stigma associated with childlessness across languages and cultures.
Read together, this volume and the creative supplement dealing with
silenced aspects of embodied motherhood in the twenty-first century will
create bridges among these transnational maternal experiences located on
the margins. In so doing, it will enhance a better understanding of the
cathartic effects of storytelling and of “working through” trauma, while
challenging accepted notions of motherhood as a monolithic entity and
the last vestige of humanity in traumatic contexts.
Works Cited
Almond, Barbara. (2010). The Monster Within: The Hidden Side of Mothering.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Amoia, Alba. (2000). No Mothers We! Italian Women Writers and Their Revolt
Against Maternity. Lanham: University Press of America.
Averis, Kate, Hollis-Touré, Isabel, eds. (2016). Exiles, Travellers and Vagabonds:
Rethinking Mobility in Francophone Women’s Writing. Cardiff: University of
Wales Press.
Blackwood, Sarah. (2018). “Is Motherhood a Genre?” Los Angeles Review of Books
(May 20). https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/motherhood-genre/.
Caruth, Cathy. (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Druckerman, Patricia. (2014). Bringing Up Bébé. One American Mother Discovers
the Wisdom of French Parenting. New York: Penguin Books.
Edwards, Natalie. (2016). Voicing Voluntary Childlessness: Narratives of Non-
Mothering in French. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Eljdupovic, Gordana and Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich. (2013). Incarcerated
Mothers. Oppression and Resistance. Ontario, Canada: Demeter Press.
Garcia, Bruno. (2019). L’Enfant que je n’attendais pas. Film.

Gedalof, Irene. (2009). “Birth, Belonging and Migrant Mothers: Narratives of
Reproduction in Feminist Migration Studies.” Feminist Review 93.1: 81-100.
Guérin, Françoise. (2018). Maternité. Paris: Albin Michel.
Heti, Sheila. (2018). Motherhood. London: Random House.
Herman, Judith. [1992] (2015). Trauma and Recovery. The Aftermath of Violence,
from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books.
Hirsch, Marianne. (1989). The Mother / Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis,
Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hogeveen, Bryan and Joanne Minaker. (2015). Criminalized Mothers,
Criminalizing Mothering. Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press.
Lê, Linda. (2011). A l’Enfant que je n’aurai pas. Paris: Nil.
Letherby, Gayle. (2002). “Childless and Bereft?: Stereotypes and Realities in
Relation to ‘Voluntary’ and ‘Involuntary’ Childlessness and Womanhood.”
Sociological Inquiry 72.1: 7-20.
Lind, Emily R. M. and Angie Deveau. (2017) Interrogating Pregnancy Loss:
Feminist Writings on Abortion, Miscarriage, and Stillbirth. Ontario, Canada:
Demeter Press.
Loridan-Ivens, Marceline (with Judith Perrignon). (2018). L’Amour après.
Paris: Grasset.
Mazzoni, Eleonora. (2012). Le difettose. Torino: Einaudi.
McCartin Wearn, Mary. (2008). Negotiating Motherhood in Nineteenth-Century
American Literature. London and New York: Routledge.
Nelson, Maggie. (2015). The Argonauts. New York: Macmillan USA.
Nesler Nicoletta and Marilisa Piga, dirs. (2015). Lunàdigas. Italy: Pierrot e la
rosa. Kinè.
O’Reilly, Andrea. (2016). Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism and Practice.
Ontario, Canada: Demeter Press.
Rich, Adrienne. (1976). Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution.
New York: Norton.
Rose, Jacqueline. (2018). Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty. New York:
Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Sautière, Jane. (2008). Nullipare. Paris: Gallimard.
Stone, Alison. (2011). Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Maternal Subjectivity.
London: Routledge.
Takševa, Tatjana and Arlene Sgoutas. (2015). Mothers Under Fire. Mothering in
Conflict Areas. Ontario, Canada: Demeter Press.
Throsby, Karen. (2004). When IVF Fails: Feminism, Infertility and the Negotiation
of Normality. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
PART I
Pregnancy, Childbirth and Trauma

Understanding the Trauma of Pervasive
Pregnancy Denial in L’enfant que je
n’attendais pas
Julie Anne Rodgers
The Problematics of Representing Denied Pregnancy

As observed by Susan Ayres and Prema Manjunath, there is a notable
dearth of representations of denied pregnancy on screen, and even less
that actually dare to challenge the stock narrative of the mother concerned
as a monster deserving only of ostracization and punishment (2012, 199).
This is linked, they argue, to the unfathomable nature of denied preg-
nancy, which continues to evade even medical comprehension. It is also
due to the fact that denied pregnancies can be seen to fall under the cate-
gory of what Barbara Almond describes as disrupted and disturbed mater-
nity. Denied pregnancy draws us over to the “dark side of motherhood”
(2010, 226), a facet of the maternal experience that society prefers to
repress from the cultural imagination in favour of the idealized figure of
J. A. Rodgers (*)
Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
e-mail: Julie.Rodgers@mu.ie

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77407-3_2
14 J. A. RODGERS
the “good” mother. Guernalec-Levy supports this, stating that pregnancy

denial troubles us because it calls into question maternal desire and pres-
ents us with a profound alteration of what is traditionally expected of
women/mothers (2007, 74). Marinopoulos and Nisand add to this, high-
lighting the restrictive nature of “notre représentation sociale de la fonc-
tion maternelle et les idéaux que nous lui accordons [qui] créent des
exigences de la bonne mère, qui n’a aucun droit de défaillir” (2011, 173).1
The mother who denies and whose pregnancy does not follow the expected
trajectory is, therefore, pitted as a mother who has “failed.”
Denied Pregnancy and French and Francophone Film

While it must be conceded that, in recent years, there has, in fact, been
some effort in the field of French and Francophone film and television to
portray the experience of denied pregnancy, the number of examples that
come to mind is nonetheless scant, to say the least. The main filmic texts
worth noting here are Emmanuelle Millet’s La Brindille [Twiggy] (2011),
Albert Dupontel’s 9 mois ferme [9 Month Stretch] (2013), Anne Fontaine’s
Les Innocentes [Agnus Dei] (2016) and Maryem Benm’Barek’s Sofia
(2018). La Brindille examines the phenomenon of partially denied preg-
nancy as well as ongoing affective denial through the character of 20-year-
old Sarah who does not realize that she is expecting until the sixth month,
by which point it is much too late to consider abortion. The film 9 mois
ferme also depicts a partially denied pregnancy but in the case of a success-
ful, middle-aged career woman. Rather than engaging in an exploration of
the phenomenon of denied pregnancy, however, the film simply uses the
trope as a subtext for what is essentially a corrective narrative for the pro-
fessional woman who has seemingly neglected her maternal instinct. In Les
Innocentes, the viewer is presented with several different manifestations of
denied and concealed pregnancies, which have occurred among a group of
nuns as a result of rape by Soviet soldiers in the context of the Second
World War. Finally, Sofia looks at pervasive denied pregnancy (pregnancy
that is undetected and unrecognized throughout the entirety of gestation)
against the backdrop of Moroccan society where strict religious and
patriarchal norms severely infringe upon women’s reproductive freedom.
1
Our societal representation of the maternal role and the idealized expectations that we
have of motherhood which, in turn, demand that the mother is always “good” without
exception (all translations from French to English are my own).
UNDERSTANDING THE TRAUMA OF PERVASIVE PREGNANCY DENIAL… 15
All four consider the traumatic impact of giving birth and suddenly becom-
ing a mother when the preparation stage, that is, the pregnancy itself, has
been largely non-existent. L’enfant que je n’attendais pas [The Unexpected
Child], the film chosen for analysis in this chapter, shares a similar concern
and allows the maternal point of view to come to the fore in its depiction
of denied pregnancy. However, there are other angles to the resultant
trauma that emerge in L’enfant que je n’attendais pas but which do not
receive the same careful treatment in the other four films. For instance,
there is substantial reference to the consequences of the denied pregnancy
for extended family members, including the newborn, as well as the social
and judicial trauma inflicted on the mother figure, thus the viewer is com-
pelled to acknowledge a spectrum of responses. Subsequently, without
diminishing or detracting from the maternal perspective, L’enfant que je
n’attendais pas manages to reflect on the nature of this particular type of
birth trauma more holistically than other on-screen representations and it
is for this reason that it is worthy of individual critical attention.
If serious on-screen representation of denied pregnancy, in contrast to
the more common media tendency towards sensationalization, is already
insubstantial, it would appear that this is even more so the case when it
comes to academic scholarship on the said subject. At present, it appears
that Ayers and Manjunath’s article cited above and which relates to
American film may, in fact, be the only existing piece of critical engage-
ment. In the field of French and Francophone scholarship, to date there
has been no published material dedicated to fictional representations of
denied pregnancy in any textual form, screen or otherwise. This chapter,
therefore, has the potential to make a valuable contribution not only to
the wider discussion of challenging variations of motherhood, but to the
very specific issue of a grossly misunderstood form of pregnancy trauma.
L’enfant que je n’attendais pas as Case Study

L’enfant que je n’attendais pas is a French tele-film directed by Bruno
Garcia and screened for the first time on France 2 in May 2019. It features
Alix Poisson and Bruno Solo in the roles of fictional couple Johanna and
Laurent Solis and, similar to Sofia cited above, takes the most extreme
form of pregnancy denial (pervasive denial) as its narrative subject.
Supported by a writing team that, significantly, included female represen-
tation, Garcia manages to offer the spectator a sensitive and engaged
reflection on the repercussions of denied pregnancy, not simply for the
16 J. A. RODGERS
mother-victim, but also the wider family and, to a certain extent, society at
large. The film opens with an idyllic scene from family life. Johanna, a slim
and attractive career woman and mother who is happily married, returns
home from work to partake in her young daughter’s birthday celebrations.
The mise-en-scène is one of bright afternoon sunlight streaming through
the windows of their tastefully decorated and well-appointed home while
laughter resounds in the background. The family presented to us is a
happy, secure and prosperous unit and there is nothing to suggest the hor-
ror and chaos that lie ahead.
Following on from the party, however, the scene cuts to dark/night
and we see Johanna waking suddenly with agonizing stomach pains.
Deciding not to disturb her husband and presuming that the spasms will
eventually subside, she goes to the bathroom where she unexpectedly
gives birth. Not fully realizing what has just happened, she places the new-
born in a plastic bag and abandons it by the bins outside. Just as Johanna
is returning to the house, her husband, who has now arisen from his sleep,
calls the ambulance when he sees wife’s blood-stained nightdress. Before
long, Johanna finds herself accused of attempted neonaticide (the baby is
rescued by a neighbour and manages to survive) despite remaining ada-
mant that this is impossible given that she was never pregnant in the first
place. It soon becomes evident that Johanna has suffered a denied preg-
nancy. However, that does not immediately absolve her of crime as one
might expect.
As the film unfolds, the focus shifts from the immediate events of the
opening scene to a careful examination of how such a trauma is negotiated
and understood internally by the victim as well the external need for a
concrete explanation of what has happened and why. Through a close
filmic reading of L’enfant que je n’attendais pas, this chapter will elucidate
the extent to which denied pregnancy remains both an enigmatic and
taboo topic in society. It will discuss the physical and psychological trauma
for the mother concerned and, moreover, the difficulties that this presents
for maternal bonding with the newborn. By considering the characters of
the husband (Laurent) and the daughter (Camille, approximately 8 or
9 years old) in the film, it will also examine the extension of the trauma to
other family members. Finally, the chapter will raise a number of questions
relating to societal expectations of motherhood and pregnancy, which, in
turn, infiltrate reactions to the phenomenon of denied pregnancy, most
notably through a refusal to accept and validate it. Linked to this will be a
discussion of the potential of L’enfant que je n’attendais pas to challenge
the prevailing norms and logic implicated in perceptions of denied preg-

nancy and, more specifically, to draw attention to the broader general need
for this phenomenon to be better understood within medical and legal
institutions.
Defining Pregnancy Denial

At this point in the chapter, it is crucial to assess in more detail what is
meant by the term “denied pregnancy.” As Del Giudice points out, recent
epidemiological studies have shown that the condition has a much higher
incidence than previously thought (1 in 475). And yet, pregnancy denial
remains very much a mystery, not only culturally, but also within medical
discourse itself, with relatively few comprehensive case studies on the phe-
nomenon (2006, 251). Indeed, as Auer and Rolland note, there is still no
single unanimous definition of denied pregnancy, most likely due to the
absence of any proper psychiatric or gynaecological classification on an
international scale (2016, 67). It is, however, widely agreed that in the
case of denied pregnancy, women show no awareness of their pregnancy
until late into the gestation period and sometimes not until after delivery
(Del Giudice 2006, 251). Furthermore, in cases of denied pregnancy, the
majority of women present with no biological indicators—they do not
experience amenorrhea or nausea and gain barely any weight. However, it
is important to acknowledge that cases of denied pregnancy do not simply
occur at an individual level but also collectively. Close friends, family mem-
bers, partners, other children and even medical practitioners consulted by
the woman in question report being equally oblivious to the situation and
stating that they had no reason whatsoever to suspect that gestation was in
progress. Often at the moment of birth, the woman experiences abdomi-
nal cramps that are confused with bowel movements, food poisoning,
stomach bugs or the onset of menstruation, thus it is not surprising that a
large number of the babies born from denied pregnancy distressingly enter
the world via the toilet. Furthermore, as there has been no awareness of
the pregnancy, the women implicated have not availed of the necessary
antenatal care and their babies quite often suffer from complications and
low birth weight.
However, the term “denial,” used to designate a multifarious range of
what Del Giudice argues might be better termed cryptic pregnancies
18 J. A. RODGERS
(2006, 251) or Masseaux renames “la grossesse impensée” (2019, 110),2

is highly problematic. First and foremost, “denial” presupposes an initial
cognitive acknowledgement whereas, on the contrary, women who “deny”
their pregnancies lack subjective awareness of their peripartum state.
Denial, on the other hand, suggests bad faith on the part of the women
concerned, a deliberate refusal, an abandonment of her responsibilities
and the calculated deceit of those close to her. As Masseaux points out,
denial insinuates intentional refusal, “qu’une femme n’a pas voulu voir ce
qui était pourtant réel” (2019, 20).3 Secondly, the term “pregnancy
denial” is overly encompassing and does not capture the sometimes quite
stark differences in the experience of the condition across women. It is
important to distinguish between the different types of denied pregnan-
cies that occur. For example: partial denial, where there is some moment
of recognition of the pregnancy, usually quite late on, however; affective
denial, where women are intellectually aware of their pregnancy but make
little emotional and physical preparation and continue to feel, think and
behave as if they are not pregnant; pervasive denial (the case of L’enfant
que je n’attendais pas), which occurs when not just the emotional signifi-
cance but also the very physical existence of the pregnancy escape con-
sciousness, and this continues right up until or close to the moment of
birth; finally, there is psychotic denial where the women who present with
denied pregnancies have a history of psychosis. None of these should be
confused with “concealed pregnancy” where the women know that they
are pregnant but outwardly they hide their pregnancy from others, usually
due to shame or fear or plans to place the child for adoption.
It is also pertinent to add that the term “denial” can be expanded
beyond the expectant mother and the pregnancy to include society’s rela-
tionship of disavowal with denied pregnancy. As Guernalec-Levy observes,
we have difficulty accepting that these women really knew nothing about
their pregnancies (2007, 22). We become suspicious of them, subject
them to interrogation and speculate derogatively on their backgrounds.
Furthermore, we construct a profile of a particular type of woman because
we cannot accept that it is a “natural” experience of pregnancy. Guernalec-
Levy writes
2
Unthought/Unthinkable pregnancy.
3
That a woman did not want to see what was real.
Le déni de grossesse véhicule une foule d’idées reçues concernant la popula-

tion qu’il touche, idées qui ont la vie dure, y compris dans le milieu médical
: le déni concernerait essentiellement les ados, les malades mentaux ou les
femmes socialement démunies. Tout faux. … Le déni est susceptible de
toucher toute femme en âge de procréer.4 (2007, 39)
Indeed, in her book Je ne suis pas enceinte [I Am Not Pregnant],

Guernalec-Levy deliberately presents the reader with examples of denied
pregnancy that do not match the expected profile—older women, profes-
sional women, educated women, women in happy relationships, women
who have no mental health problems and even women who are already
mothers. For Guernalec-Levy, these sweeping generalizations about
women who experience denied pregnancy are symptomatic of the sacral-
ization of maternity and our steadfast belief in maternal instinct.
La persistance de ces stéréotypes est intéressante. Elle joue peut-être un rôle

de protection. Comme si découvrir et accepter l’absence de profil type reve-
nait à affronter soudain la part trouble, voire sombre de la maternité, à
reconnaître que chaque femme porte en elle une ambivalence parfois mor-
tifère face à la grossesse. (2007, 39)5
Like Guernalec-Levy’s text, L’enfant que je n’attendais pas is also keen

to deconstruct the stereotypes associated with women who fall victim to
denied pregnancy and, for this reason, the viewer is presented with Johanna
who by no means fits the “typical” and “expected” profile. Johanna, as we
already know, is in her late thirties to early forties, well-educated, middle-
class and part of a loving family. Moreover, she has already experienced
pregnancy and childbirth, thus it cannot be assumed that the denial is the
result of being naïve and unfamiliar with the signs and symptoms. At the
same time, however, Johanna’s non-stereotypical profile is one of the very
4
Pregnancy denial engenders a whole host of received ideas concerning the demographic
that it affects, ideas that are hard to deconstruct, even within the medical domain. For exam-
ple, denial primarily concerns female adolescents, women with mental health problems or
women from the lower classes. This is all false. Denial can affect any woman within the pro-
creating age bracket.
5
The persistence of these stereotypes is interesting. It plays a protective role, perhaps. It’s
as if discovering and accepting the absence of a typical profile would mean suddenly con-
fronting the more difficult, darker aspects of maternity, recognizing that each and every
woman harbours ambivalence, at times lethal, in relation to pregnancy.
20 J. A. RODGERS
arguments that will be used against her in the collective refusal to accept
her denial as authentic.
Individual and Collective Denial

It is not until Johanna awakes in hospital, drugged, disorientated and in
substantial physical discomfort, that the extent of the traumatic birth
experience that she has just endured becomes fully manifest. When
informed by the medical staff that she now has a newborn, her reaction is
one of utter confusion: “Quel bébé? De quoi vous parlez ? Ce n’est pas
possible. Je ne suis pas enceinte.”6 To support this proclamation, Johanna
provides what she considers to be definitive evidence. For example, she
had been taking the contraceptive pill, she didn’t gain any weight, there
was no interruption to her monthly periods and, perhaps most signifi-
cantly, she had recently consulted a doctor with “stomach pains” and no
pregnancy had been detected. Johanna reiterates her claim and states that
there must have been a mix-up of some sort: “Vous vous trompez de per-
sonne. Je ne suis pas enceinte.”7 The use of the present tense here, when
the statement should now be uttered in the past tense, is worth comment-
ing on. The birth of the baby has already taken place but continuing to
insist that she is not pregnant in the present tense erases, to a certain
extent, the occurrence of labour, thereby extending the period of denial.
This is also the case for her husband who, when informed about the exis-
tence of a newborn by the ambulance crew called to his home, rejects the
information as nonsense and, in similar language to Johanna, declares
“Ma femme n’est pas enceinte.”8 Once again, the use of the present to
refer to an event that is now in the past is revelatory, in that it points to the
open-endedness of the pregnancy denial which one might expect to be
resolved through the birth process.
A further point to be made regarding the equal levels of incredulity
between husband and wife regarding what has just happened is the idea of
denied pregnancy as “un mécanisme collectif” (Masseaux 2019, 17)9
involving “une série d’acteurs, de l’entourage aux intervenants de la santé
6
What baby? What are you talking about? It’s impossible. I’m not pregnant.
7
You have confused me with someone else. I’m not pregnant.
8
My wife is not pregnant.
9
A collective mechanism.
et du social” (Masseaux 2019, 53)10 and not just the individual mother
figure. The husband’s profession as physiotherapist, accustomed to closely
observing bodies and their movements, is remarked on in the film, as well
as the fact that he both shared a bed and intimate relations with his wife
over the course of the last nine months. It is not just Johanna, therefore,
who is implicated in the denied pregnancy but her husband too.
Commenting on the role of partners in cases of denied pregnancy,
Masseaux states, “Tout comme leur compagne, ils ont fait un déni en ne
percevant pas les signes infiniment discrets de la grossesse” (2019, 37).11
Guernalec-Levy develops this argument, suggesting that it is perhaps the
collective aspect to the denial that is key to the persistence of the denial in
the mother concerned, based on the logic that “c’est aussi le regard de
l’autre qui permet de se sentir enceinte” (2007, 12).12
Linked to this idea of pregnancy denial extending beyond the mother
figure is society’s outright refusal to believe Johanna’s account of events,
which, understandably, intensifies the trauma as her own personal truth is
invalidated. The mother who experiences a denied pregnancy is treated as
“une dissimulatrice qui n’assume pas ses devoirs maternels”13 and labelled
as “la menteuse, la folle, ou encore pire, l’irresponsable” (Marinopolous
and Nisand 2011, 16).14 Consequently, the police who interrogate
Johanna in the hospital, before she has even had time to recover from the
horror of her labour, presume maternal agency and deceit, as is evident in
the recriminatory tone of their questioning: “Pourquoi vous avez caché
votre grossesse ? Pourquoi vous avez tenté de tuer votre bébé ?”15 Similarly,
Johanna’s husband rejects his wife’s narrative, also accusing her of having
engaged in a deliberate act of concealment. “Dis-moi la vérité,”16 he
orders her, and “Pourquoi tu m’as caché que tu étais enceinte?”17 As
Guernalec-Levy points out, “le terme ‘cacher’ porte en lui l’intention et la
préméditation” (2007, 111),18 thereby engendering a denial of the denial.
10
A series of participants, from the immediate entourage to social and medical workers.
11
Just like their partner, they have undergone a denial by not recognizing the very discrete
signs of pregnancy.
12
It is also the gaze of the Other that allows a woman to see her pregnancy.
13
A deceitful woman who refuses to assume her maternal role.
14
A liar, crazy or, even worse, irresponsible.
15
Why did you hide your pregnancy? Why did you try to kill your baby?
16
Tell me the truth.
17
Why did you hide that you were pregnant from me?
18
The term hide implies intention and premeditation.
22 J. A. RODGERS
Both Johanna’s mother-in-law and the judge dealing with the legal case
that emerges from the abandonment of the newborn also contribute sig-
nificantly to the persistent cancelling of the mother’s narrative that occurs
in the film. Her mother-in-law claims that, as far as she is concerned, it is
impossible to be pregnant and unaware of it: “Quand on est enceinte on
le sait.”19 Johanna is, therefore, like many women who undergo a denied
pregnancy, implicitly blamed “de ne pas avoir été suffisamment à l’écoute
de leur corps” (Masseaux 2019, 48).20 The judge hones in on Johanna’s
age, education and the fact the she has already had a child as condemna-
tory evidence that the denial has been falsified: “Madame Solis n’est pas
une jeune femme écervelée qui ne connaît pas les signes d’une grossesse.”21
Simultaneously, through this statement, the judge also reinforces the ste-
reotypes commonly associated with denied pregnancy and the belief that
it can only happen to a certain type of woman. This is a myth that, it must
be added, is also initially upheld by Johanna herself, until she has had the
opportunity to undergo therapy: “Mais ça n’arrive pas à des femmes
comme moi. Ça arrive à des femmes qui ont des problèmes.”22
With such reluctance to believe that a denied pregnancy has indeed
occurred, by those close to Johanna as well as society at large, it becomes
necessary then to construct what might be deemed a more feasible inter-
pretation. As Marinopolous and Nisand observe, “Questionner, vouloir
une réponse à tout prix est le premier réflexe avec ces femmes. Tout le
monde la prie de donner une explication tout de suite” (2011, 132).23
Subsequently, Johanna finds herself accused of having had an affair and
carried another man’s baby as well as being over-ambitious in terms of her
career, with her mother-in-law remarking that “On ne donne pas une pro-
motion à une femme enceinte”24 and thus insinuating that the pregnancy
was deliberately hidden in favour of professional success. Marinopolous
and Nisand clarify why society needs an explanation for denied pregnancy
as follows
19
When you’re pregnant, you know.
20
To not have been properly in tune with her body.
21
Mrs. Solis is not an idiotic young woman who doesn’t know what the signs of preg-
nancy are.
22
But that kind of thing doesn’t happen to women like me. It happens to women with
problems.
23
Questioning, demanding a response at all costs is the first reflex when faced with these
women. Everyone wants an immediate explanation.
24
Pregnant women don’t get promotions.
Les femmes qui font un déni … nous projettent dans un monde incom-
préhensible dont nous voulons absolument sortir …. Il est intolérable de se
retrouver face à un corps non modifié qui attend un enfant; il est insupport-
able d’entendre telle femme nous dire qu’elle ne savait rien de son état.
(2011, 132)25
However, the image of Johanna that emerges from these “explana-

tions,” far from taking into account the level of trauma that has been suf-
fered, is of a woman who is cruel and calculated and who considered the
well-being of her baby as inferior to her own survival. Even harsher, how-
ever, is the depiction of Johanna as monstrous for having abandoned the
baby that she did not know existed by the media reporting on incident as
well as by the other women with whom she is later imprisoned. This label-
ling of Johanna/the mother as monster is a common trope in cases of
denied pregnancy. It is a means of distancing ourselves from actions that
we perceive to be both unthinkable and unspeakable: “En les classant dans
la catégorie des monstres, nous les privons d’appartenance à notre
humanité” (Marinopolous and Nisand 2011, 92).26
Maternal Trauma
One of the main indicators of the extreme level of trauma that Johanna has
just undergone is her state of complete dissociation from her body. On
two separate instances she describes feeling totally outside of and removed
from herself: “J’ai l’impression que c’est pas moi”27 and “C’est comme si
c’était pas moi.”28 Much later in the film, when revisiting the events of that
particular night with her therapist, this sense of dissociation from the
actual birth and, by extension, the baby, is revisited. Johanna refers to hav-
ing lost all control of her body that evening, so much so that it felt as if she
wasn’t even there, as if her body had betrayed her. Masseaux observes that
the trauma of denied pregnancy can remain long after the birth itself, not-
ing that “la plupart des femmes se méfient dorénavant de leur corps. Elles
25
Women who experience denial … force us to enter an incomprehensible world that we
want to escape from. … We cannot tolerate these bodies that do not change despite expect-
ing an infant; we cannot accept a woman telling us that she didn’t know anything about her
pregnancy.
26
By classifying them monsters, we deprive them of humanity.
27
I feel like it’s not me.
28
It’s as if it wasn’t me.
24 J. A. RODGERS
ont peur de faire un nouveau déni de grossesse. … Elles n’ont plus tout à
fait confiance en leur corps qui a caché ce qu’il est pourtant censé afficher”
(2019, 73).29 When Johanna jokes, therefore, towards the end of the film,
that she is going to take a pregnancy test every month for the rest of her
life, the humour masks the deeper and enduring wounds of the trauma
that befell her.
As a result of the corporeal dissociation engendered by the denied preg-
nancy, it is not surprising, therefore, that Johanna should experience sig-
nificant difficulties in bonding with her newborn. This is not helped, of
course, by the fact that Johanna is initially prevented from seeing, holding
and feeding her baby thereby prolonging her denial phase by preventing
mutual recognition. Johanna herself pleads with the medical staff and
police officers: “Mais j’ai besoin de savoir qu’il existe.”30 Subsequently, the
baby remains outside the realm of consciousness and temporality for
Johanna, causing her to feel, in her own words, “comme si c’était l’enfant
d’une autre.”31 It is worth noting here that it is not until several weeks
after the birth that the baby is given a name (Hugo), and even then, it is
his sister Camille who provides it and not one of his parents who both
struggle with his existence and refer to him simply as “le bébé”32 as if he
has no connection to them.
To return specifically to Johanna, however, it must be acknowledged
that Johanna’s inability to bond with the newborn is also closely linked to
the fact that she has not had time to prepare for its arrival in the way that
expectant mothers normally would. In other words, Johanna has been
deprived of what Bayle describes as the psychic space of pregnancy (2016,
23). According to Bayle, each trimester is integral to the development of
a different aspect of the mother-child relationship to come (2016, 28). As
Marinopolous and Nisand astutely point out, “il ne suffit pas d’accoucher
pour devenir mère” (2011, 223).33 Masseaux agrees with this stating that
the becoming of the mother is a long process that unfolds in small steps
over the course of the nine months of gestation (2019, 39). Women who
experience denied pregnancy, however, do not have access to the vital
29
The majority of these women are suspicious of their bodies from then on. They are wor-
ried about another pregnancy denial. … They no longer have any confidence in a body that
hid from them something that it should have revealed.
30
But I need to know that he exists.
31
It’s as if it’s someone else’s baby.
32
The baby.
33
Becoming a mother is not simply about giving birth.
period of psychic preparation, hence the traumatic repercussions of the

sudden arrival of the newborn in the mother’s life and the negative impli-
cations for bonding. And yet, as Guernelac-Levy remarks, because of cul-
tural expectations of motherhood, we are deeply intolerant and impatient
with these mothers who fail to perform with “natural” maternal instinct,
as is the case for Johanna who finds herself being reprimanded by a nurse
for not being able to produce enough breast milk even though she has
been denied skin-to-skin contact. In relation to women and denied preg-
nancy, Guernalec-Levy observes that
la société attend d’elles qu’elles agissent en mères aimantes et protectrices,

qu’elles se saisissent de l’enfant, le pressent contre leur sein, le réchauffent,
lui témoignent de l’attachement, de la tendresse. Parce que c’est ainsi
qu’une mère se conduit. (2007, 116)34
During the film, Johanna is subjected to a process of re-learning which

takes place under the strict surveillance of others. Although already a lov-
ing mother to Camille, she is forced to prove herself to society, to demon-
strate that she has the capacity to be a “good mother” and that she is
deserving of the right to raise her own child.
Extended Trauma
Without undermining the traumatic impact of denied pregnancy on the
mother, L’enfant que je n’attendais pas also successfully draws the specta-
tor’s attention to the wider implications of such a phenomenon, in par-
ticular for the newborn and other family members concerned. Although
Johanna’s baby survives and emerges strong and healthy despite the cir-
cumstances of the pregnancy, it is made clear that had the paramedics
arrived even minutes later, the outcome could have been fatal. The risk of
infant mortality in the case of denied pregnancy is elevated, first due to the
often-perilous conditions of the labour and second as a direct result of the
pregnancy not having been monitored. During Johanna’s pregnancy, we
learn that she continued to consume alcohol, exercised no extra precau-
tion (e.g., she did not take folic acid) and did not receive antenatal
34
Society expects these women to act as loving and protective mothers. It expects them to
lift the baby to the breast, keep it warm, show it attachment and tenderness. Because this is
how a mother behaves.
26 J. A. RODGERS
treatment. As Libert attests, the baby born of a denied pregnancy is just as

vulnerable as the mother, if not more so (2016, 138). Given that many of
these births take place in toilets (as the mother believes that she is suffer-
ing from extreme stomach or bowel cramps), the immediate care that is
required for the newborn after labour is simply not available. In discussing
the trauma of the birth process in the instance of denied pregnancy, it is
vital, therefore, to consider the impact not only on the mother but also on
the newborn. Marinopolous and Nisand summarize this as follows
Un enfant qui naît à la suite d’un déni de grossesse de sa mère est un enfant
pour lequel aucun processus d’attente ne s’est construit. Cet enfant arrive
soudainement et, quand le déni s’est maintenu jusqu’à l’accouchement, il
projette la mère et l’enfant dans un danger réel pour leur vie respective.
(2011, 88)35
Expanding on from this, in the same way that the denial has been
described earlier as a collective phenomenon, implicating more than just
the pregnant woman, so too can the trauma be seen to stretch beyond the
mother-newborn dyad. After Johanna and the baby, the other characters
whose lives are significantly disrupted by the unexpected birth are, under-
standably, her husband and her daughter. The film shows the way in which
cases of denied pregnancy are regularly sensationalized by the media with
Johanna’s family members hounded by reporters and this relentless exter-
nal harassment exacerbating what is already an overwhelming internal
ordeal. Where Camille is concerned, there is also the added struggle of
school bullies taunting her over what has happened to her family. With
both lives having been irrevocably disrupted, Laurent and Camille, like
Johanna, experience a sensation of dislocation and dissociation from their
sense of self. Laurent feels lost and estranged from everything that was
once familiar to him and finds it difficult to reconfigure his identity:
“Qu’est-ce que je suis censé faire ? Reprendre ma vie comme si de rien
n’était ?”36 Similarly, Camille no longer recognizes in Johanna (whom she
knows to have abandoned her brother by the bins), the mother who was
tender and protective of her daughter. There is an acute sense of loss for
Laurent and Camille who, while grappling with the unexpected arrival of
35
An infant born of a denied pregnancy is an infant for whom no preparation whatsoever
has been undertaken. The infant arrives suddenly, and when the denial persists up until the
onset of labour, both the lives of the mother and the infant are thrust into grave danger.
36
What am I supposed to do? Start my life all over again as if nothing has happened?
the baby, are simultaneously struggling to negotiate a now altered rela-

tionship with a wife and mother who has become unfathomable to them.
Judicial Trauma
The final aspect of the trauma of denied pregnancy as depicted by L’enfant
que je n’attendais pas that must be discussed before drawing the film analy-
sis to a close is, of course, the problematic status of this particular phe-
nomenon within the judicial system. As previously indicated, Johanna
abandons her newborn by the bins outside immediately after the birth.
Guernalec-Levy refers to this “le syndrome du sac-poubelle” (2007,
103)37 and explains it as a frequently occurring, uncontemplated and auto-
matic response on the part of women who have experienced pregnancy
denial. Despite the emphasis on the unconscious nature of such an action,
Johanna, nonetheless, finds herself accused of a pre-meditated attempt at
neonaticide and is facing a lengthy prison sentence, which commences
when she is refused release on bail while the legal proceedings are ongoing.
What unfolds then in the film is a complex court battle whereby Johanna
must prove the validity of her denied pregnancy and demonstrate that she
is not guilty of concealment and intended murder. It quickly becomes
clear that there is a very weak understanding of the reality of pregnancy
denial within the legal system, as is evident in Johanna’s struggle to find a
suitable and sympathetic lawyer to represent her (e.g., she is initially
turned down by her best friend who is a lawyer). In fact, for the most part,
it is up to her to research the phenomenon and equip her legal team with
the general facts while also trying to negotiate her own personal psycho-
logical and physical trauma. The success of the case rests on being able to
convince the jury that Johanna truly had no awareness of her pregnancy
whatsoever and did not realize that she was in labour. As Ducroix and
Vacheron underline, the mother who undergoes a denied pregnancy and
abandons the newborn after the birth cannot be accused of a pre-meditated
attempt at neonaticide if one accepts that “cet enfant … n’a jamais existé
en tant qu’être différencié” (2016, 208).38 Marinopolous and Nisand add
to this argument by describing labour in the case of denied pregnancy not
as a “giving birth” experience, but, rather, “une tentative de survie …
37
The bin-bag syndrome.
38
This child … who has never existed as a separate being.
28 J. A. RODGERS
luttant pour ne pas mourir”39 through the physical expulsion of whatever

is causing the pain (2011, 82). The infant that emerges from the woman’s
body, Ducroix and Vacheron inform us, “est généralement traité comme
un déchet dont il faut se séparer ou qu’il faut faire disparaître” (2016,
208)40 and this would explain why Johanna, stunned and trance-like,
leaves her newborn son by the bins. In presenting her circumstances to the
court, Johanna emphasizes what Marinopolous and Nisand describe as
“l’état de panique, de sidération, d’incompréhension que la femme
éprouve” (2011, 82).41 Through a keen focus on the minutiae of Johanna’s
legal case, L’enfant que je n’attendais pas succeeds, therefore, in convinc-
ing the spectator of both the heightened vulnerability and altered con-
sciousness of the mother who has experienced pregnancy denial.
Furthermore, the film pinpoints gaps in the judicial system that fail to take
into account the very specific circumstances of this particular type of
trauma, which, although it can lead to a tragic outcome, this is generally
unintended.
Recovery Through Support and Education

To conclude, it is my contention that L’enfant que je n’attendais pas is
incredibly successful in its multi-angled and ethical treatment of preg-
nancy denial. As has been demonstrated, this includes a careful examina-
tion of the mother’s suffering and complex path towards recovery, the
extended consequences for other family members and, lastly, society’s
problematic relationship with this challenging condition, as is particularly
evident within the legal domain. The film, therefore, has the potential to
serve as a useful educational tool in relation to public awareness and
understanding of what is involved when a denied pregnancy occurs. It can
be said to fall into a particular type of motherhood film that foregrounds
“stories that are seldom heard but instead are repressed by law and society
as the dark and monstrous side of maternity” (Ayres and Manjunath
2012, 219).
Not only does L’enfant que je n’attendais pas debunk many of the
myths associated with the phenomenon of denied pregnancy and seek to
alleviate the blame attributed to the mother concerned, it also highlights
39
An attempt at survival … fighting so as not to die.
40
Is generally treated as a waste product that have removed and erased.
41
The state of panic, stupor and confusion that these women find experience.
key areas of society where services for these women are in grave need of
improvement. For example, the film broaches the need for more support
groups dedicated to facilitating recovery from the trauma of denied preg-
nancy. As Masseaux states, it is absolutely essential to offer a safe and
empathetic space to these mothers where they can talk freely and without
fear of judgement from their entourage (2019, 106). The same point is
underscored by Blazy who speaks of the importance for women who
undergo denied pregnancy of having access to “un accompagnement qui
ne les stigmatise pas; et qui refuse de voir en elles des menteuses, voire des
monstres, ou encore pire des femmes potentiellement meurtrières” (2016,
49).42 In the case of Johanna, it is within the forum of the community
support group which gathers together various women who have under-
gone a similar experience, that she begins to better comprehend what has
happened to her and realize that she is not alone in her anguish. It is also
the support group and its emphasis on talking therapy that enables her to
better articulate her experience to her legal representatives, thus indirectly
leading to the more positive outcome of her trial whereby she is found
guilty for abandoning a minor as opposed to attempted neonaticide and
receives a suspended sentence.
Having exposed the various layers to the trauma of denied pregnancy,
L’enfant que je n’attendais pas ends on a note of recovery. The final scene
of the film depicts a confident and informed Johanna delivering a talk to
medical students on her own personal experience of denied pregnancy.
L’enfant que je n’attendais pas is, therefore, an example of how art and
film can educate society and encourage renewed and more tolerant atti-
tudes in relation to the poorly understood medical condition of denied
pregnancy.
Works Cited
Almond, Barbara. (2010). The Monster Within: The Hidden Side of Motherhood.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Auer, Julie and Anne-Catherine Rolland. (2016). “Une revue de la littérature.” In
Benoît Bayle (Ed.), Le déni de grossesse (67–87). Toulouse: Éditions Eres.
42
An accompanied journey, where they are not stigmatized or treated as liars and monsters
or, even worse, potential murderers.
30 J. A. RODGERS
Ayres, Susan and Prema Manjunath. (2012). “Denial and Concealment of

Unwanted Pregnancy: A Film Hollywood Dared Not Do.” Journal of Civil
Rights and Economic Development 26 (2): 197–221.
Bayle, Benoît, ed. (2016). Le déni de grossesse, un trouble de la gestation psychique.
Toulouse: Éditions Eres.
Blazy, Micheline. (2016). “Le déni de grossesse et l’obstétricien.” In Benoît Bayle
(Ed.), Le déni de grossesse (39–50). Toulouse: Éditions Eres.
Del Giudice, Marco. (2006). “The Evolutionary Biology of Cryptic Pregnancy: A
Re-Appraisal of the Denied Pregnancy Phenomenon.” Medical Hypotheses
68: 250–258.
Ducroix, Corinne and Marie-Noëlle Vacheron. (2016). “Le néonaticide.” In
Benoît Bayle (Ed.), Le déni de grossesse (197–212). Toulouse: Éditions Eres.
Guernalec-Levy, Gaëlle. (2007). Je ne suis pas enceinte. Enquête sur le déni de gros-
sesse. Paris: Éditions Stock.
Libert, Michel. (2016). “A propos de l’inconcevable du déni de grossesse, de la
profusion des représentations et de la nécessité de définir des conduites à tenir.”
In Benoît Bayle (Ed.), Le déni de grossesse (123–147). Toulouse: Éditions Eres.
Marinopolous, Sophie and Israël Nisand. (2011). Elles accouchent et ne sont pas
enceintes. Le déni de grossesse. Paris: Presses LLL.
Masseaux, Justine. (2019). Une maternité impensée. Devenir mère suite à un déni
de grossesse. Louvain-la Neuve: Éditions Academia.
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Benm’Barek, Meryem, dir. (2018). Sofia. France, Belgium, Qatar, Morocco:
Curiosa Films, Versus Production.
Dupontel, Albert, dir. (2013). Neuf mois ferme [9 Month Stretch]. France, Belgium:
ADCB Films, France 2 Cinéma.
Fontaine, Anne, dir. (2016). Les Innocentes [Agnus Dei]. France: Aeroplan Cinema,
France 2 Cinéma.
Garcia, Bruno, dir. (2019). A l’enfant que je n’attendais pas [The Unexpected
Child]. France Television: Pampa Productions.
Millet, Emmanuelle, dir. (2011). La brindille [Twiggy]. France: Thelma Films,
Manchester Films, Canal.
Salvaging the Bones Means Fighting
for Reproductive Justice: Jesmyn Ward’s
Literary Representations of the Trauma
Produced by Attacks on Reproductive Rights,
Comprehensive Sex Education, and Access
to Maternal Health Care
Mary Catherine Foltz
Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones (2011) is a stunning portrayal of one

family’s preparation for Hurricane Katrina and struggle to survive as the
storm impacts a region of Mississippi in the United States. While the novel
I offer thanks to Laura Lazzari for organizing a 2019 NeMLA panel titled “New
Representations of Motherhood in the New Millennium” and to panelists at
NeMLA for their feedback on an early version of this chapter. I also am grateful
to my colleague Suzanne Edwards for her expert advice during the revision
process. Finally, I am indebted to graduate students, especially Justin McCarthy,
in my “Post-45 U.S. Women Writers” course at Lehigh University for their
thoughtful engagement with Ward’s work, which helped me to clarify my
arguments in this article.

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77407-3_3
32 M. C. FOLTZ
has received widespread acclaim for its critical account of state institutions’
failure to protect marginalized communities during times of natural disas-
ter, critics have spent less time discussing how the novel is a twenty-first-
century contribution to the reproductive justice movement and Black
feminists’ critiques of middle-class white feminists’ limited focus on abor-
tion rights.1 Indeed, because the novel centers on a young girl, Esch, com-
ing to terms with an unplanned pregnancy and reflecting upon her
mother’s death following the birth of Esch’s younger brother, it is a pow-
erful portrayal of the challenges facing Black women in the U.S. Because
of its consistent and clear depiction of the variety of ways in which educa-
tional, medical, and governmental institutions fail Black mothers and their
children, the novel should be understood as one of the most important
contemporary novels to depict the impact of the Republican religious
right’s effective attacks on reproductive rights, comprehensive sex educa-
tion, and feminist health care facilities. As the novel centers on the Black
maternal health crisis and the lack of access to prenatal care as well as abor-
tion services in the South for Black women, it also showcases how white
middle-class feminists’ focus on abortion rights alone fails to address the
needs of low-income women of color.2 While legally they may have the
right to choose an abortion, the absence of state and federal funding for
M. C. Foltz (*)
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA
e-mail: mcf209@lehigh.edu
1
There are a few published articles that focus explicitly on pregnancy or sexuality in Salvage
the Bones; see Marotte 2015, 207–220; Edwards 2015, 141–167; Henry 2019, 71–85; and
Locke 2013, 12–19. A series of other articles address representation of Hurricane Katrina.
See Clark 2017, 341–358; Lloyd 2016, 246–64; Manzella 2018, 188–198; Crawford 2018,
73–84; Green 2018, 126–143; and Jellenik 2015, 221–237. For Jesmyn Ward’s nonfictional
account of her family’s experience of Hurricane Katrina, see Ward 2008, 34–41. Other arti-
cles address Ward’s intervention into representations of poverty in canonical U.S. literary
works; see Railsback 2016, 179–195; and Moynihan 2015, 550–567.
2
The critique offered here is not new. In the 1980s, the National Black Women’s Health
Project (NBWHP) was a central intellectual and activist force in moving beyond a limited
focus on abortion rights to a broader reproductive justice platform that addresses “external
challenges confronting communities of color and constraining their reproduction—popula-
tion control, sterilization abuse, unsafe contraceptives, welfare reform, the criminalization of
women who use drugs and alcohol during pregnancy, and coercive and intrusive family plan-
SALVAGING THE BONES MEANS FIGHTING FOR REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE… 33
abortion and closure of abortion providers across the South has made it
impossible for many low-income women to exercise their right to termi-
nate a pregnancy. And decreased funding for state and federal welfare,
racism, and classism within health care institutions, and the lack of afford-
able, inclusive, as well as supportive maternal health care for low-income
women, has led to increased maternal and infant mortality for Black
women and their children. By portraying the physical and emotional trau-
mas produced by institutions that fail to value Black mothers and their
children, Ward ultimately calls readers to respond to the high levels of
maternal mortality for Black women in the U.S. and the devaluation of
Black mothers as well as the disenfranchisement of their children through
a reproductive justice paradigm in which women of color are empowered
to make decisions about their own reproductive health care and provide
leadership in transforming medical, educational, and familial institutions
to meet their needs. The various forms of trauma that Esch (the protago-
nist) and her mother experience lead her to imagine—and to fight for—
communal, familial, and societal transformations that will benefit Black
women, their families, and larger communities.3
My chapter, titled “Salvaging the Bones Means Fighting for
Reproductive Justice,” positions representations of trauma in the novel in
conversation with theorists of reproductive justice and Black feminist the-
ory, including texts by Dorothy Roberts (1997) as well as Loretta Ross
ning programs and policies” (Silliman et al. 2016, 8). For a strong history of the foundations
of reproductive justice and key Black, Latinx, Native American, and Asian American leaders
as well as organizations in the movement, see Silliman et al. 2016. In the 1990s, Dorothy
Roberts continued this critique as she intervened into “public and scholarly debated about
reproductive freedom [that] center[ed] abortion, often ignoring other important reproduc-
tive health policies that are most likely to affect Black women” (1997, 5). For Roberts, activ-
ists and scholars need to explore the full range of policies and institutions that limit Black
women’s “reproductive autonomy,” including their ability to access safe birth control, pre-
natal care, childcare, and the financial means to support their families (1997, 5). For more
recent accounts of the foundations and current aims of reproductive justice activism, see Ross
and Solinger 2017; Ross et al. (eds) 2017; Briggs 2017; and Gurr 2015.
3
While I focus on the value of Ward’s novel for elucidating the stakes of reproductive
justice, Edwards shows how the novel intervenes into “black feminism … increasingly identi-
fied as a sexually conservative discourse whose adherence to a politics of respectability hin-
ders its capacity to respond in meaningful ways to the lives and cultures of contemporary
black women” (2015, 149). Her essay powerful illustrates the text’s value for broader con-
versations about representations of Black women’s sexuality beyond a focus on pregnancy
(Edwards 2015, 156–162).
34 M. C. FOLTZ
and Rickie Solinger (2017), and others.4 In particular, I show how the
novel reveals the failure of medical, educational, governmental, and famil-
ial institutions to live up to the three central tenets of the reproductive
justice movement: “the right not to have a child,” “the right to have a
child,” and “the right to parent a child in safe and healthy environments”
(Ross and Solinger 2017, 9). As Ross and Solinger explain,
At the heart of reproductive justice is this claim: all fertile persons and per-
sons who reproduce and become parents require a safe and dignified context
for these most fundamental human experiences. Achieving this goal depends
on access to specific, community-based resources including high-quality
health care, housing and education, a living wage, a healthy environment,
and a safety net for times when these resources fail. (2017, 9)
Like these activists and theorists, the novel critiques medical and govern-
mental institutions that neglect women by making access to reproductive
health care too expensive, limiting access to full reproductive health care
such as abortion services and prenatal care, and fostering health care envi-
ronments that deny Black women’s full humanity and value as mothers.
My analysis of maternal death and teen pregnancy in the novel draws upon
the aforementioned theorists, and also positions the text within the
twenty-first-century context of Mississippi’s long-term attack on repro-
ductive choice and education that has become even more effective during
the Trump presidency.5 While other authors in this collection turn to
trauma theory, I show how the novel links bodily and psychic trauma to
institutional structures that injure Black women and their children. In this
way, I reveal how literary works can help readers connect trauma to their
causes and begin to imagine structural change. In particular, I address
how the novel explores the physical and psychic trauma produced by: (1)
lack of prenatal care that can lead to maternal death; (2) lack of access to
information about sexual and reproductive health; (3) lack of access to
abortion services; and (4) lack of resources to raise children in healthy
environments before, during, and after natural disasters, thereby linking
reproductive justice to environmental justice movements. Despite the lack
of governmental, medical, and educational support, Black mothers in
4
See Ross and Solinger 2017; Ross et al. (eds) 2017; and Roberts 1997.
5
For an account of the history of reproductive politics that includes analysis of the Trump
era, see Briggs 2017. For recent discussions of Mississippi’s attack on abortion services, see
Carlsen et al. 2018; Andrews 2018 and 2019. Also, see Lai 2019.
Another random document with
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recognised where the ladders lead down to the holds beneath.
These vessels carry powerful pumps, the oil being taken on board
and discharged by this means. Oil is also employed as the ship’s
fuel, and the boiler is kept as far away from the cargo as possible,
but in order to counteract the possibility of the oil getting adrift and
leaking into the after part of the ship, a separate small compartment
is also added, so as more completely to divide the hold from the
boiler and engines. This will be easily recognised in the illustration.
The other illustration facing page 246 shows a model of the Silverlip,
also with her engines placed well aft; but this, with her derricks and
her deck-houses, represents a larger and more complex ship.
We come now to a type of steamship, which, by reason of its
peculiar construction, is deserving of more than ordinary
consideration. Opposite page 248 we give the latest example of this
type—the s.s. Inland. The “turret-ship,” as the class is called, is of
quite modern origin, and no one can come face to face with her
without being instantly struck with her unusual appearance. She
owes her birth to Messrs. William Doxford and Sons, Limited, of
Sunderland, who are the patentees and builders of this kind of ship.
It is needless to say that when this novel class of steamship first
appeared in the early ’nineties there was aroused the usual
prejudice; indeed, having in mind what has been the experience of
other inventors in connection with our subject, the reader could
hardly expect otherwise. Firstly, let us consider her with regard to her
appearance. It will be seen that she differs from the usual cargo and
passenger ship in that her sides tumble right in above the water-line.
This forms a kind of half turtle deck, and is known as the harbour
deck. But the upper deck of the “turret-ship” is extremely narrow.
(This will be seen more easily by reference to the next illustration,
which gives a model of the midship section of such a ship.) The
harbour deck need not be used except when in port, but it can be
employed for stowing long timbers or even iron girders if required.
Like the oil-tanker, many of the turret-ships have their engines
placed right aft, so that there is a long clear space for stowing the
cargo in the hold, an advantage which is especially appreciated in
the carrying of certain kinds of cargoes. Just as we saw there was
great danger to a ship in the possibility of oil washing about the hull
and shifting in a perilous manner, so also there is a danger in such
cargoes as rice and grain. With regard to the latter, I remember the
case of a big cargo ship which had the misfortune to spring a leak
and the water swelled the rice to such an extent that the ship, strong
as she was, burst her sides. But in the case of grain the danger is
not merely that, but also of shifting. As guarding against this
possibility the turret-ship, by reason of her special design, is
specially suitable, for any shifting that may take place in the turret
matters but little, and whatever shifting may take place in the hold is
compensated for by the turret; the cargo can be shot into the hold
without needing any trimming. The deck of the “turret” portion will be
seen from the illustration facing page 248 to form a navigating
platform.
SECTION OF MODERN OIL-TANK STEAMER.

Photograph from a Model. By permission of Messrs. Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd.
THE “SILVERLIP.”
From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Some of the modern turret-ships are fitted with twelve or

fourteen masts arranged in pairs, each pair being across the ship
instead of fore-and-aft-wise. These vessels have proved themselves
to be excellent sea-boats, and owing to their high freeboard and the
harbour deck, which acts as a kind of breakwater, it has to be a very
bad sea indeed that will break over the ship. Furthermore, the
harbour deck tends to reduce the rolling of the ship, for when one
side of the ship heels over so that one harbour deck is under water,
the windward side, when it holds a certain amount of water, actually
tends to bring the ship back to her level. Moreover, since these
decks are unencumbered with obstructions, they can suffer no
damage through the wash of the sea. They are also extremely strong
ships, for the sides of the turrets increase the strength of the vessel
longitudinally, while the curved formation of the harbour deck
augments their strength transversely; their simplicity of construction
and their adaptability for almost any cargo still further add to their
virtues. But from the view-point of the owners the turret-ship is even
still more a welcome type of craft, in that since dues are paid on a
ship’s registered tonnage the turret-ship is able to carry far more
cargo in proportion to her size than most vessels. On a small
registered tonnage the turret-ship has an exceptionally large dead-
weight capacity, and those parts of her which are liable to be taxed
are diminished as far as is possible, whilst at the same time greater
space is allowed to the carrying and handling of the cargo.
Economically, then, the turret-ship, with her odd shape, her many
masts and derricks, is a very advantageous carrier.
A good deal of interest has recently been aroused by the
peculiarities of a steamship named the Monitoria, which, though not
a turret-ship, is sufficiently out of the ordinary design to warrant
special mention. She is just an ordinary single-deck cargo steamer,
but instead of the usual wall-sided shell-plating has two longitudinal
corrugations along the outside of her hull. These swellings, so to
speak, extend below the water-line and gradually merge into the
ship’s lines at bow and stern. The claim made for this novelty is that
it is effective in reducing the wave-like irregularities, and allows of
more power being available for propulsion, whilst it also lessens the
rolling and pitching of the ship. The captain of this ship is reported to
have said that these corrugations had a beneficial effect on the
steering, whilst the wake of the ship was found to be smooth and
about half the width instead of the full breadth of the ship. Very
interesting as practical comment on a subject that we have treated
elsewhere in this volume, is her commander’s remark that whilst in a
diagonal sea, which was running at a height of 9 feet or 10 feet, a
ship of ordinary form and the same dimensions as the Monitoria
would have been safe proceeding at no higher speed than 6 or 6½
knots, yet the Monitoria was safe going ahead at 7¼ to 7½ knots.
The corrugations are said also to increase the ship’s buoyancy, and
thus admit of three per cent. more cargo being carried, while the hull
is more readily able to resist the strains than vessels of ordinary
shape. It is probable that this novel principle will be presently
exemplified in a first-class liner, and in a foreign cruiser.
Similar to the turret-type is the “trunk-deck” steamer, which
possesses like advantages. She resembles in appearance the
former type, but instead of the curves (seen in the Inland) at the
gunwale and bases of the turret or “trunk,” the sides of the trunk rise
from the main deck nearly at right angles, the harbour deck being
really a true deck. This kind of ship owes her birth to Messrs. Ropner
and Sons, of Stockton-on-Tees. Such vessels afford even more than
the turret-ships the appearance of a kind of up-to-date man-of-war,
without the guns which one would almost expect to see protruding
from behind some of her steel plates. It should be borne in mind that
both the turret and the trunk type possess an absence of sheer, for
the height of the lofty turret, or trunk, enables this to be dispensed
with, while to make up for this lack of sheer from the bows to the
stern, the vessel is given a top-gallant forecastle.
THE TURRET-SHIP “INLAND.”

From a Photograph. By permission of Messrs. W. Doxford & Sons, Ltd.
MIDSHIP SECTION OF A TURRET-SHIP.
When a vessel is carrying her full cargo her stern is sufficiently

immersed to prevent her propeller from racing badly in a heavy sea.
But when she is making a voyage “light” there is great danger of
damage to the ship through the fracturing of the propeller shaft as
the ship dips her bows and raises her tail in the air. Everyone who
has had experience of handling small craft of any kind is aware that
the lower the ballast is placed the more the ship will roll. In an
extreme case, when all the ballast is placed outside the ship on to
her keel, the motion in a sea-way is more like that of the pendulum
than anything else. The method which we are now about to discuss
allows of water-ballast tanks being placed sufficiently high at the
“wings” to counteract this rolling. Opposite page 250 will be seen two
illustrations of the patent cantilever-framed steamers which are built
by Messrs. Sir Raylton Dixon and Company, Limited, of
Middlesbrough, through whose courtesy the photographs are
reproduced. By examining them it will be seen that water-ballast can
be carried not only in the usual tank at the bottom of the ship, but in
the wing tanks at the sides of the ship, and at such a height that
when the ship is crossing the ocean without cargo, she will have an
easy motion.
The lower illustration shows a section of one of these cantilever
ships, and the water-ballast tanks, above which is a shelter deck that
in the case of a passenger ship can be used as a promenade, or can
accommodate live cargo in cattle-ships. It will be noticed that the
ship’s frames are bent inwards, and that these, together with the
vertical sides of the hull, form the triangular spaces for the tanks.
Now these tanks run fore and aft on both sides and increase the
strength of the ship, not merely longitudinally, but transversely.
Owing to this the necessity of adding such obstructions to the hold
as pillars and beams vanishes, and as will be seen in the
illustrations, the hold is thus free and unencumbered for all manner
of cargo. It is further claimed for this cantilever craft that she can
carry a dead-weight more than three times the net register, and since
these tanks are not reckoned into the tonnage they increase the
safety and comfort of the ship without detracting from her utility. The
reader will also notice in the upper picture to what an enormous
extent the modern steamship is now being fitted with extra derricks,
with a cross-piece up the mast to take the strain involved in working
the latter.
As the reverse of being specially adapted for a particular service,
the steam tramp is built so that she can readily engage in almost any
carrying trade. Unlike the liner with her fixed routes and set times of
departure and arrival, the tramp is a nomad, and wanders over the
world picking up a cargo here and there, and taking it across the
ocean at her economical but jog-trot speed. If there is nothing for her
to pick up at the last port of call she betakes herself elsewhere with
the hope of better luck. Her main income is derived as a coal-carrier,
and for this she is quite suited. But the modern collier—the kind of
ship which is expressly built for the coal trade—is fitted with numbers
of steam winches in keeping with the modern feverish haste and
hurry, so that no sooner has she come alongside than she may
instantly begin to unload. In old-fashioned times the discharging was
done from the shore, but nowadays the up-to-date turret-ship makes
short work of handling her black diamonds. Special appliances are
also provided for those steamships which bring over the seas vast
quantities of New Zealand mutton, fruit, and other perishable articles
of food. Elaborate refrigerating machinery has to be installed in the
ship, and special means employed to facilitate the disembarking of
the cargo, especially in the case of the former.
CANTILEVER-FRAMED SHIP.
By permission of Sir Raylton Dixon & Co., Ltd.
To a still more exceptional purpose has the steamship been
adapted in order to act as an ice-breaker and give liberty to those
ships which, in certain parts of the world, have, with the approach of
winter, been compelled to enter a lengthy imprisonment. Such
localities are found in both Canada and Russia. Thanks to the ice-
breaker steamship it has been made possible to keep open the
Baltic ports with a passage of sufficient width. Constructed of a
strength which is possessed by no other vessel than a man-of-war,
the ice-breaker attacks the frozen masses as a battleship used to
ram her foe. She goes for the ship’s enemy with her curved bow, and
wages war with all the ability which the ship-builder and naval
architect have given her. Her bow is specially strengthened to suffer
the force of the contact with the heavy ice masses, and the lines of
the hull are such that the ice in its endeavour to crush the ship finds
difficulty in getting a good grip upon it. Nevertheless, these ships are
fitted with numerous water-tight compartments. Their means of
propulsion are, of course, screws.
Similarly, across the North Atlantic, the steamship on the Great
Lakes, where for one third of the year the water is frozen, has to
battle with the ice-fiend. Ordinary steamers have to be laid aside, but
the train-ferry steamship still goes on with her work, being specially
designed to break through the impeding ice. As in the Russian ice-
breakers, so here the principle employed is that the ship shall forge
her way unto the ice, and by means of her overhanging bow, and its
weight, shall break through the obstruction.
Across the wide harbour of New York the steamship train ferries,
carrying rolling stock run aboard by lines, are employed to an extent
that is strange in comparison with English customs, although the
idea is not new to the Mersey, and the evergreen scheme of
instituting a ferry of this nature across the English Channel to
France, so that international travellers can go from Charing Cross to
the other end of the world without having to change their
compartments, is still advocated with enthusiasm.
We pass now to another type of steamship, which is endowed
with as much distinctive character as the steam tug. The steam
trawler may not be as smart as a steam yacht nor as fast as a
torpedo destroyer; yet, for all that, she is able to encounter as bad
weather and—size for size—is perhaps a good deal better sea-boat.
In the North Sea, which has been the favourite cruising ground of the
steam trawler, there is to be encountered as nasty and dangerous a
short sea as can be found, perhaps, in any other part of the world. In
all weathers, and at all times of the year, the trawler has to go about
her business, and the comparatively few disasters that overtake her
is a credit at once to the seamanship of her skipper and the
seaworthiness of the little ship herself. Opposite this page we show a
photograph of a typical North Sea steam trawler. This is the Orontes
of Hull, built in 1895, of iron, by Messrs. Cochrane and Sons, of
Selby. She measures 110 feet long, 21 feet wide, and 12 feet deep,
her net tonnage being 76, and her horse-power 60. The evolution of
the steam trawler was on this wise: When the value of steam had
been shown to be worth the consideration of the fisherman he
responded. At first the old-fashioned paddle-steamer was used
tentatively on the north-east coast of England, and the writer
remembers in the early ’eighties the singular unattractiveness—the
total absence of beauty, indeed—which these vessels possessed. By
birth and adoption these were properly tugs, but they did a bit of
trawling on their own account when not otherwise required, and met
with sufficient success to repeat the experiment many times. Some
of these ugly old craft are still to be seen in the neighbourhood of
Scarborough and Whitby.
THE NORTH SEA TRAWLER “ORONTES.”
From a Photograph. By permission of Messrs. Cochrane & Son, Selby.
THE STEAM TRAWLER “NOTRE DAME DES DUNES.”

From a Photograph. By permission of Messrs. Cochrane & Son, Selby.
But since the fishing fleets were at sea for weeks together, and
something faster than a sailing ship was required to hurry the
cargoes to market, a special steam fish-carrier came in which plied
her voyages from the Dogger to London and the east coast ports.
From that it was an easy step to building a steamship for use not as
a carrier but as a trawler. Already steam had been in use on board
the sailing trawler, but that had been for hauling the nets and
warping into dock. The increase of competition, the loss of a market
through calms and the prevalence of head winds, clearly marked the
way for the coming of the steam trawler. Recently it has been shown
that the employment of the motor-propelled trawler means a saving
of cost and a greater share of profits to all concerned, and perhaps
in the next decade the steam trawler may find the more modern form
of propulsion to be a serious rival. But even now sail has anything
but vanished, and there are many purely sail-driven trawlers, as also
there are many steam trawlers with auxiliary sails. Within the last few
years the steam fishing ship has grown to be of considerable size,
with topgallant forecastle, high freeboard and lofty wheel-house, so
that it penetrates to oceans thousands of miles away from the North
Sea, being enabled by reason of its size to carry sufficient quantities
of coal for many miles. The lower illustration facing page 252 shows
one of the modern type of steam trawler. This is the Notre Dame des
Dunes, built by the same makers as the Orontes. Her substantial
forecastle, her bold sheer and high bows, together with her length
(rather more than six beams to the longitudinal expanse), eminently
fit her for her work in most trying circumstances. A curious survival of
the old-fashioned sailing ship is seen in the retention in a twentieth
century ship of the imitation square ports painted along her topsides.
The Notre Dame measures 160 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 14½ feet
deep.
HYDRAULIC LIFEBOAT.
By permission from “The Yachting Monthly.”
But to-day, even with all the modern improvements which have
been put into the ship, both sailing and steam-propelled;
notwithstanding all the navigational appliances, the water-tight
compartments, the size of ships and the excellence with which they
are sent on their voyages, there is still need for the lifeboat, which
has to go out many times during a bad winter at the summons of
necessity. Although it is possible that the motor, as in the trawler, will
eventually oust steam from this special type of craft, that stage has
not yet been reached. Steam is a comparatively recent innovation to
the lifeboat, and this is partially explainable by the deep-rooted
prejudice of the local seamen. It is also owing to the fact that when
the lifeboat has to go out at all the seas are very bad, and the craft is
subjected to the water breaking over, and unless special precautions
were taken to guard against this the fires would be put out, and the
boat would be rather worse off than if she had no engines. There are
only a few steam lifeboats along our shores, and they are placed at
such stations where they can lie afloat instead of having to be
launched down the beach or from a specially constructed slipway.
The first form of steam lifeboat was to some extent on the lines of
the ship which John Allen had suggested as far back as 1730, of
which we spoke in an earlier chapter. It will be remembered that he
advocated a system which was actually employed by James
Rumsey in 1787. The principle was that of sucking water in at the
bows and ejecting it at the stern. A more recent instance of the use
of this idea will be found in the boat illustrated on the opposite page
which shows a hydraulic lifeboat. The disadvantage of having a
screw propeller is that it stands a very good chance of being fouled,
if not damaged, by wreckage and ropes. Therefore engines were
installed which sucked in the water by means of a “scoop,” placed at
the bottom of the boat amidships. The water thus indrawn is
discharged aft on either side of the hull, and if the craft is desired to
go astern, then this is easily done by discharging water forward. This
type has been in actual use, and has been highly efficacious in
saving human life from shipwreck. By referring to the lower figure of
the illustration on page 255, which shows the midship section of one
of the hydraulic type, some idea will be gained of the placing of the
“scoop.” By using alternately one of the after pipes the ship can be
manœuvred to port or starboard just like a vessel fitted with twin-
screws. But there are corresponding disadvantages which require to
be weighed. It is distinctly not an economical method of propulsion,
and if the sea happens to contain much sand considerable damage
may happen to the engines, and other undesirable matter also may
work still greater havoc.
A SCREW LIFEBOAT.
By permission from “The Yachting Monthly.”
On the other hand, we have mentioned that the screw has its
drawbacks owing to the possibility of its suffering injury. It was
therefore decided that this could be avoided by placing it in a tunnel
some distance forward of the stern, and thus protected against all
likely damage. (A similar method is also employed in the steam fire-
boats which are used by the London Fire Brigade on the Thames,
and are summoned whenever a river-side warehouse or factory gets
ablaze.) If reference is made to the illustration on page 257, this
tunnel will be discernible. In order to leave nothing to chance a
water-tight hatch is placed in the cock-pit floor just over the propeller,
through which any pieces of sea-weed, rope, or other undesirable
matter can easily be removed without having to beach the craft first.
These little ships measure about 50 feet long, and about 15 feet
wide; they are driven by direct-acting, compound, surface-
condensing engines, which give to them a speed of about nine
knots.
In certain parts of the world where the rivers are shallow, either
at their banks or in mid-stream, steam navigation is only possible by
means of “stern-wheelers.” Such instances occur on the West Coast
of Africa, and also in America. In general idea, though not in detail,
this method is a reversion to the antiquated ship already discussed
in Hulls’ idea for a tow-boat. The stern of these steamships to which
we are referring is not ended in the same continuous straight line,
but is raised slightly upwards at an angle so that the paddle-wheel is
able to revolve freely without requiring such a draught of water as
otherwise it would have needed if placed on the ship’s side in the
usual manner. This will be seen on examining the stern of the Inez
Clarke, illustrated opposite this page. This stern-wheeler was built as
far back as 1879, but the points on which we are insisting are here
well demonstrated. The draught of the ship, notwithstanding the
weight of her engines, was only 15 inches, so that she was enabled
to go into the very shallowest water, where even a bottle could float.
Nevertheless her stern-wheel was sufficiently powerful to send her
along at 15 miles per hour. Her measurements are 130 feet long,
and 28 feet wide. Steamboats possessing a similar principle to that
exhibited in the Inez Clarke, but much different in the arrangement,
are to-day in use on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, being used as
tugs to tow along a large fleet of flat-boats containing coal. As much
as fifty to sixty thousand tons are taken in tow at one time.
THE “INEZ CLARKE.”
THE “NATCHEZ” AND THE “ECLIPSE” (1855).

THE “EMPIRE.”
To North America, with its fine long rivers, the steamboat has
been, as Fulton in his foresight prophesied it would be, a highly
useful institution. To the European mind the vast possibilities of the
mighty Mississippi come as a shock when fully realised. To quote the
very first sentence in one of the most popular books which that most
popular writer, Mark Twain, ever wrote, “The Mississippi is well worth
reading about”; so, also, we might add, are its steamboats, but in our
limited space we can only barely indicate some of their essential
features. The illustration facing page 258 shows a couple of these,
the Natchez and the Eclipse, racing against each other along this
great river by the light of the moon at midnight. The first thing that
strikes the attention is the enormous height to which the decks of
these steamboats are raised. The pilot-house is higher still, and will
be recognised as about midway between the water-line and the top
of the long, lanky funnels. Even to Mark Twain the height seemed to
be terrific. “When I stood in her pilot-house,” says the author of “Life
on the Mississippi,” “I was so far above the water that I seemed to be
perched on a mountain; and her decks stretched so far away, fore
and aft, below me, that I wondered how I could ever have considered
the little Paul Jones a large craft. When I looked down her long,
gilded saloon, it was like gazing through a splendid tunnel.... The
boiler deck—i.e. the second storey of the boat, so to speak—was as
spacious as a church, it seemed to me; so with the forecastle; and
there was no pitiful handful of deck-hands, firemen, and roustabouts

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Trauma and Motherhood in

Contemporary Literature and Culture

ISBN 978-3-030-77406-6 ISBN 978-3-030-77407-3 (eBook)

Cover illustration: RooM the Agency / Alamy Stock Photo

Part I Pregnancy, Childbirth and Trauma 11

Part II Trauma and Disrupted Mother-Child Bonds 85

Part III New Challenges with ART 161

 have an enterprise:” Transnational Surrogacy, Neoliberal

 Trauma for Artificial Women: Monstrous, Cybernetics, and

Maya Aghasi is an Assistant Professor at the American University of

Hernán J. Droguett is a freelance translator who works on both com-

Laura Lazzari is a researcher in the field of motherhood studies and the

the Irish Journal of French Studies with Elise Hugueny-Léger on parental

Laura Lazzari and Nathalie Ségeral

The present volume repositions motherhood studies in the twenty-first

Supplementary Information The online version of this chapter (https://doi.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

chapters brings together contributions from established and emerging

as a way to put an end to the cycle of Holocaust post-memory. French

well as bringing to the forefront marginalized maternal experiences

Sex Education, and Access to Maternal Health Care,” Mary Catherine

The following two chapters focus on motherhood and trauma in societ-

Echoing and complementing Runde’s contribution, the following

Garcia, Bruno. (2019). L’Enfant que je n’attendais pas. Film.

Pregnancy, Childbirth and Trauma

Julie Anne Rodgers

The Problematics of Representing Denied Pregnancy

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 13

the “good” mother. Guernalec-Levy supports this, stating that pregnancy

Denied Pregnancy and French and Francophone Film

L’enfant que je n’attendais pas as Case Study

the prevailing norms and logic implicated in perceptions of denied preg-

Defining Pregnancy Denial

(2006, 251) or Masseaux renames “la grossesse impensée” (2019, 110),2

Le déni de grossesse véhicule une foule d’idées reçues concernant la popula-

Indeed, in her book Je ne suis pas enceinte [I Am Not Pregnant],

La persistance de ces stéréotypes est intéressante. Elle joue peut-être un rôle

Like Guernalec-Levy’s text, L’enfant que je n’attendais pas is also keen

Individual and Collective Denial

However, the image of Johanna that emerges from these “explana-

period of psychic preparation, hence the traumatic repercussions of the

la société attend d’elles qu’elles agissent en mères aimantes et protectrices,

During the film, Johanna is subjected to a process of re-learning which

treatment. As Libert attests, the baby born of a denied pregnancy is just as

the baby, are simultaneously struggling to negotiate a now altered rela-

luttant pour ne pas mourir”39 through the physical expulsion of whatever

Recovery Through Support and Education

Ayres, Susan and Prema Manjunath. (2012). “Denial and Concealment of

Mary Catherine Foltz

Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones (2011) is a stunning portrayal of one

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 31

SECTION OF MODERN OIL-TANK STEAMER.

Some of the modern turret-ships are fitted with twelve or

THE TURRET-SHIP “INLAND.”

When a vessel is carrying her full cargo her stern is sufficiently

THE STEAM TRAWLER “NOTRE DAME DES DUNES.”

THE “NATCHEZ” AND THE “ECLIPSE” (1855).

You might also like

Part I Pregnancy, Childbirth and Trauma 11

Part II Trauma and Disrupted Mother-Child Bonds 85

Part III New Challenges with ART 161

have an enterprise:” Transnational Surrogacy, Neoliberal

Trauma for Artificial Women: Monstrous, Cybernetics, and