Taking Bows and Batting Zero: An Inquiry into Mothers' Selfhood as Represented in Narrative and Film
Abstract
To examine the paradox resulting from conflicting duties of motherhood and parenthood respectively, this project aims to isolate parenthood as a genderless ideal for the purpose of understanding how the socially constructed ideal of motherhood is erroneous. The first portion of my project will establish the intellectual discourse and terminology that will be pertinent to my film analysis by providing a background in Christine M. Korsgaard’s philosophical theories of the self, agency, and identity. In my analysis of the 2010 film, Black Swan, an initial understanding of how dual personhood is self-destructive, as well as how patriarchy tends to enforce these radical dualities as not only achievable but masterable when they are, in fact, not, will provide an initial premise for my argument that healthy identity must not interfere with the well-being of the self, nor should it be so singular that it leads to conflation of the self with a singular practical identity. In my analysis of Lady Bird (2017), I will lay out an initial understanding of how this expectation for dual personhood exists in a portrait of a mother, leading to tension and dysfunction within the family unit. I will also emphasize the importance of mutual participation in partnered parenthood, while highlighting how the gender arrangements which normalize unilateral care make allowances for women to suffer from the dual-edged sword of progress in gender-equality. In my analysis of Gypsy: a Musical Fable (1959) as well as the memoir it was based off of, Gypsy: a Memoir (1957), I will present the argument that narrative representations of subjective experience have the capacity to universalize private experience and be used as a social tool for philosophical inquiry and experimentation. This meta-critical acknowledgement of not only the fallibility of human memory but also the more basic flawed nature of language relieves us as readers of concerns regarding truth claims by permitting us to treat testimony and fiction as akin to thought experimentation.
Advisor
Prendergast, Thomas
Second Advisor
Rudisill, John
Department
English; Philosophy; Interdepartmental
Recommended Citation
Blystone, Johnna, "Taking Bows and Batting Zero: An Inquiry into Mothers' Selfhood as Represented in Narrative and Film" (2024). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 11047.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/11047
Disciplines
Comparative Philosophy | Epistemology | Feminist Philosophy | Film and Media Studies | Gender and Sexuality | Metaphysics | Modern Literature | Other Film and Media Studies | Other Philosophy | Philosophy | Social Justice | Television | Theory and Philosophy
Keywords
philosophy, feminist, feminism, mother, parent, parenting, mothering, selfhood, self, philosophy of self, Korsgaard, identity, practical identity, feminist identity, identity of self, paradox, film, film analysis, memoir, literature analysis, Black Swan, Lady Bird, Gypsy, musical, daughter, mother-daughter, coming-of-age, coming of age, self-constitution, self constitution, agency, autonomy, autonomy of mothers, generational inheritance, gender arrangements, parenting, gender biases, unilateral expectations for care
Publication Date
2024
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2024 Johnna Blystone
