Thesis advisor: Kevin Newmark / This dissertation constitutes a systematic literary study of the image of the mother in Camus’s works. The study is twofold: it represents 1) a reconstruction of the story of the image of the mother through the analysis of the image’s manifestations and meanings and 2) a reading of Camus’s oeuvre through the lens of this image. In this dissertation, the image of the mother is approached as a unique entity that 1) has its distinctive parameters, inner logic, language, manifestations, and levels of meaning, 2) manifests a tendency to remain central, and 3) leads an uninterrupted existence throughout the entire oeuvre. The narrative unfolding of the image of the mother repeats Camus's progression through his project and shows an intimate connection to the problematics of the self and the expression of emotion. Paralleling the twists and turns of Camusian creation, the existence of the image of the mother in the texts remains dual: embodied and hidden. Hence, the analysis of the sequence of the image’s perceptible forms – i.e., the mothers who appear in different works, in particular the mother of “Entre oui et non” (L’Envers et L’Endroit), Mme Meursault (L’Etranger), the mother of Jan (Le Malentendu), Mme Rieux (La Peste), and Catherine Cormery (Le Premier Homme) – is supplemented by an account of the image’s less perceptible forms – i.e., veiled presences, echoes, traces, and avatars. The narrative is not only cumulative, it has a specific direction. As the story of the image of the mother unfolds, moving from text to text, from one manifestation to another, the image of the mother is gradually unveiled as a living symbol, the Mother-Christ – a figure of conciliation of the living and the symbolic and a point of convergence of the vertical and the horizontal. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures.

This study explores the patriarchal unconscious underlying the Korean horror genre through a critical feminist psychoanalytical reading of the family dynamics and female agency in three landmark texts, namely, The Public Cemetery under the Moon (Kwon, Chul-hwi, 1967), Mother's Han (Lee, Yusup, 1970) and Woman's Wail (Lee, Hyuksu, 1986). By closely examining these horror film texts using insights from feminist psychoanalytic approaches and situating the texts within historical events and popular culture in the Park Chung Hee era, this study produces an understanding of the cultural dilemmas of women's desire and agency, and especially those of mothers. These textual analyses demonstrate that Confucian virtues, especially as been reinvented under Park Chung Hee's leadership to facilitate developmentalist goals, have formed the roots that shape the mother-child relationship into one that both parties want to dissolve. Through placing the cinematic representation of the monstrous feminine within a historical understanding of Korean horror cinema, this dissertation also demonstrates that the sacred, perfect image of the mother as it is known in Korean popular culture today is in fact historically produced formation within the genre. Besides, with Woman's Wail, a very characteristic Confucian female monster is discussed, namely, the mother-in-law. With this very rare type of the female monster, the misogynistic gender politics within Confucian patriarchy is saliently represented. The feminist psychoanalytic discussion on the spectatorship focuses on the interplay between the image and the Confucian female spectator. In a close reading of the two women's desires in The Public Cemetery under the Moon, this study explores the ways in which the female spectator may find visual pleasures in Korean horror cinema and the ways in which they are communicated and negotiated vis-à-vis the matrix of gender politics in Confucian culture. Taken together, this work demonstrates how the Confucian value system re-invented in the Park Chung Hee era has been a crucial apparatus for women's oppression, and at the same time, how women's agency is nonetheless evinced despite the strictures of Confucianism.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-19T18:15:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria de Nazareth Mendes.pdf: 389224 bytes, checksum: 08646b22837e0da45a85944cf52145d4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-11-30 / The present study had as objective to identify the mothers' socioeconomic characteristics, to know the experiences of neonatal internment, to know the mothers' perception on their babies' development, to know the mothers' perception on his/her role in the development through a descriptive study of qualitative approach. The data were collected at the Clinic of Continuation of the Infantile of the Academical Hospital Maternal Unit starting from the record register and semi-structured interview, applied with ten mothers. The data were separated in three categories: experiences from the birth to the discharge, the maternal perception on the baby's development and the maternal paper in the baby's development; later they were submitted to the content analysis. The found results were: that the mothers present low socioeconomic level, they consider development as health and comfort of the baby, worrying about the relationship between premature birth and their children's development, recognizing his/her role as caretakers primary, vigilant and stimulating for the children's good development, understanding that the family assumes a secondary paper in the development process. It is concluded this way that: the mothers' low socioeconomic level should be considered by the team in the planning of the attendance, seeking the improvement of the maternal knowledge on premature and development. The valorization of the daily experiences lived by the mother and the baby, the importance of stimulating the other members of the family is emphasized to make part as support in the process of the babies' development. / A percepção das mães sobre o desenvolvimento dos bebês prematuros. Objetiva identificar as características socioeconômicas das mães, conhecer suas experiências de internação neonatal, conhecer a percepção das mães sobre o desenvolvimento de recém-nascidos, conhecer sua percepção sobre o seu papel no desenvolvimento dos bebês, através de um estudo descritivo de abordagem qualitativa. Os dados foram coletados no Ambulatório de Seguimento da Unidade Materno-Infantil do Hospital Universitário, através de ficha de coleta de dados e de entrevista semi-estruturada, realizadas com dez mães. Os dados foram agrupados em três categorias: experiências do nascimento à alta, a percepção materna sobre desenvolvimento do bebê e o papel materno no desenvolvimento do bebê; posteriormente foram submetidos à análise de conteúdo. Os principais resultados encontrados foram: que as mães apresentam baixo nível socioeconômico, conceituam desenvolvimento como saúde e bem-estar do bebê, preocupando-se com a relação entre prematuridade e desenvolvimento dos seus filhos, reconhecendo seu papel como cuidadoras primárias, vigilantes e estimuladoras para o bom desenvolvimento dos filhos, compreendendo que a família assume um papel secundário no processo de desenvolvimento. Conclui-se desta forma que: o baixo nível socioeconômico das mães deve ser considerado pela equipe no planejamento da assistência, visando ao aprimoramento do conhecimento materno sobre prematuridade e desenvolvimento. A valorização das experiências cotidianas vivenciadas pela mãe e pelo bebê ressaltam a importância de estimular os demais membros da família a participar como rede de apoio no processo de desenvolvimento dos bebês.

Within Gothic literature, the mother is frequently missing. In Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Morella,” “Ligeia,” and “Eleonora,” and Edith Wharton’s “Bewitched,” men are left without parents, and they attempt to recuperate a mother-figure. To do so, the men in these texts psychologically project the role of their mother onto other women. Wives, sisters, and daughters all have the potential to become mothers to these men. This is a catastrophe for the women involved, for male perception fails to distinguish females as autonomous, unique beings. By conflating roles in the family structure, men destroy women and thus are left without the nurturing mother-figure – or indeed any female – they desperately need.

La presente investigación buscó comparar las Representaciones de Apego Adulto y del Rol Materno en una muestra de madres de niños con Trastorno del Espectro Autista de Lima Metropolitana según su estilo de apego predominante. Participaron en el estudio 100 madres, entre 26 y 52 años. Los instrumentos utilizados para evaluar las variables fueron el CaMir – R y la Escala de Representaciones Mentales del Rol Materno (RMRM). Se encontró predominancia del estilo de apego inseguro, ya que 69 madres contaron con dicho estilo. Asimismo, se encontraron diferencias significativas entre las madres con estilo de apego seguro e inseguro en cuatro dimensiones del CaMir-R: las madres con estilo de apego seguro alcanzaron mayores puntuaciones en las representaciones de seguridad y disponibilidad; mientras que las madres con estilo de apego inseguro lograron mayores puntuaciones en las representaciones de permisividad parental, autosuficiencia y rencor y en traumatismo infantil. Finalmente, se hallaron diferencias significativas en las representaciones mentales del rol materno negativas, ya que las madres con estilo de apego inseguro alcanzaron puntuaciones superiores. / The aim of the present study was to analyze the Adult Attachment Representations and Maternal Representations in a group of mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Lima Metropolitana. The participants were 100 mothers aged 26 to 52 years. The instruments used to assess these variables were the CaMir-R and the Maternal Representations Scale. The predominant attachment style was insecure attachment, since 69 mothers had this style. The results showed significant differences between mothers with secure and insecure attachment style in four dimensions of CaMir-R: mothers with a secure attachment style got higher scores in Security and Availability representations, while mothers with an insecure attachment style got higher scores in Parental Permissiviness, Self-sufficiency and Resentment, and in Infantile Traumatism. Finally, significant differences in the negative maternal representations were also found, since mothers with insecure attachment style obtained higher scores. / Tesis