Maternal Detachment in Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958) and Sarraute’s Childhood (1983)

Author Bio:

Iris Thirlwall is a fourth year English Literature student at The University of Edinburgh. Throughout her studies, she has been particularly interested in representations of identity and selfhood in literature, with this being explored across multiple areas, predominantly Romantic poetry and the concept of the sublime, post-war ideas of belonging in Modernist literature, and the role of autobiography in presenting and informing a writer’s identity. 

Essay Abstract:

This essay examines the detachment that is prevalent in the maternal relationships presented respectively in Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter and Nathalie Sarraute’s Childhood, arguing that such detachment is caused by the writer witnessing contradictions in their parents’ behaviours, thus destabilising their authority through the eyes of a child. 

Maternal detachment is shown to be the dominant consequence of contradictions in parental behaviour, due to learned patriarchal values as well as preeminent physical and emotional distance between each writer as children and their mothers catalysing the growth of distrust. 

The use of autobiography as a form of presenting maternal detachment is examined briefly as the essay concludes, arguing that the narrative voice of Sarraute’s autobiography reveals prevailing guilt towards the revelation of her mother’s behaviour, whereas Beauvoir has made peace with maternal detachment.

Read the full essay here:

Maternal Detachment in Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958) and Sarraute’s Chil.

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