Abstract
The long period of juvenile dependency in humans means (a) there is high correlation between parental investment and parental fitness and (b) such investment is costly (Trivers, 2002b). Because investment decisions regarding offspring are closely tied to ultimate fitness goals—and central, therefore, to an individual’s life history—we can expect to find works of imaginative literature grappling with the trade-offs parents must consider. Drawing largely on materials from the British and American canons, this chapter investigates the evolutionary logic behind variable allocation of care and resources to children. Topics include maternal vs. paternal investment, the presence or absence of co-parents, reasons for favoring one child over another, the influence of environmental conditions, and children’s gender, birth order, health, legitimacy, or phenotype. The fictional worlds of literature invite readers to rehearse and assess possible responses to a wide range of parenting dilemmas.
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Saunders, J.P. (2020). Literary Representations of Parental Investment: Fitness Quandaries and Strategic Decisions. In: Carroll, J., Clasen, M., Jonsson, E. (eds) Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46190-4_16
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