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The cultural ideal of motherhood in Victorian Britain seems to be undermined by Victorian novels, which almost always represent mothers as incapacitated, abandoning or dead. Carolyn Dever argues that the phenomenon of the dead or missing mother in Victorian narrative is central to the construction of the good mother as a cultural ideal. Maternal loss is the prerequisite for Victorian representations of domestic life, a fact which has especially complex implications for women. When Freud constructs psychoanalytical models of family, gender and desire, he too assumes that domesticity begins with the death of the mother. Analysing texts by Dickens, Collins, Eliot, Darwin and Woolf, as well as Freud, Klein and Winnicott, Dever argues that fictional and theoretical narratives alike use maternal absence to articulate concerns about gender and representation. Psychoanalysis has long been used to analyse Victorian fiction; Dever contends that Victorian fiction has much to teach us about psychoanalysis.

Bereavement in literature --- Carence maternelle dans la littérature --- Death in literature --- Dood in de literatuur --- Maternal deprivation in literature --- Maternité dans la littérature --- Moeders in de literatuur --- Moederschap in de literatuur --- Mort dans la littérature --- Motherhood in literature --- Mothers in literature --- Mères dans littérature --- Rôle selon le sexe dans la littérature --- Seksuele rolpatronen in de literatuur --- Sex role in literature --- Sterfte in de literatuur --- Tekort aan moederliefde in de literatuur --- English fiction --- -Maternal deprivation in literature --- Psychological fiction, English --- -Sex role in literature --- Literature and society --- -Psychoanalysis and literature --- -Women and literature --- -Literature --- Literature and psychoanalysis --- Psychoanalytic literary criticism --- Literature --- Literature and sociology --- Society and literature --- Sociology and literature --- Sociolinguistics --- English psychological fiction --- English literature --- History and criticism --- History --- -Bibliography --- Social aspects --- -Literature and psychoanalysis --- Psychoanalysis and literature --- Women and literature --- 19th century --- Great Britain --- Psychological fiction [English ] --- Psychoanalysis and literature - Great Britain - History - 19th century. --- Maternal deprivation in literature. --- Arts and Humanities --- Mothers in literature. --- Motherhood in literature. --- Bereavement in literature. --- Gender identity --- Sex role in literature. --- Death in literature. --- Psychoanalysis and literature. --- History. --- Collins, Wilkie, --- Dickens, Charles, --- Eliot, George, --- Woolf, Virginia, --- History and criticism.