Abstract
Situating Munro’s representations of breastfeeding in relation to contemporary advice to mothers, this chapter argues that Munro’s stories challenge the moralization of infant feeding in contemporary culture. In contrast to an infant feeding discourse dominated by an emphasis on the biomedical benefits of breastfeeding for babies, Munro’s stories characterize nursing as one of the everyday tasks of motherhood, an activity motivated in any given moment by desires and antagonisms that may have little to do with children’s health. Munro’s attention to the ethical and affective dimensions of infant feeding makes the needs, desires, and feelings of women central to her representation of motherhood, and participates in a broader critique of a culture of neoliberalism that positions mothers as uniquely responsible for maintaining their children’s health.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Blum, Linda. At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeeding and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States. Boston: Beacon, 1999.
Carter, Pam. Feminism, Breasts, and Breast-Feeding. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995.
Crouch, Mira, and Lenore Manderson. “The Social Life of Bonding Theory.” Social Science and Medicine 41, no. 6 (1995): 837–844.
DeFalco, Amelia. Imagining Care: Responsibility, Dependency, and Canadian Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.
Faircloth, Charlotte. “‘What Feels Right’: Affect, Emotion, and the Limitations of Infant-Feeding Policy.” Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy 34, no. 4 (2013): 345–358.
Guenter, Lisa. “‘Like a Maternal Body’: Emmanuel Levinas and the Motherhood of Moses.” Hypatia 21, no. 1 (2006): 119–136.
Jung, Courtney. Lactivism. New York: Basic Books, 2015.
Kukla, Rebecca. Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mother’s Bodies. Lanham: Rowan and Littlefield, 2005.
———. “Measuring Mothering.” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 1, no. 1 (2008): 67–90.
La Leche League International. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, 6th ed. Schaumburg, IL: La Leche League International, 1997.
Lavoie, Chantel. “Good Enough, Bad Enough, Animal, Monster: Mothers in Alice Munro’s The Love of a Good Woman.” Studies in Canadian Literature 40, no. 2 (2015): 69–85.
Law, Jules. “The Politics of Breastfeeding: Assessing Risk, Dividing Labor.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 25, no. 2 (2000): 407–450.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Otherwise Than Being, or Beyond Essence. Translated by A Lingis. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1981.
Morgenstern, Naomi. “The Baby or the Violin? Ethics and Femininity in the Fiction of Alice Munro.” Literature Interpretation Theory 14 (2003): 69–97.
Munro, Alice. “Jakarta.” In The Love of a Good Woman, 67–98. Toronto: Penguin, 1998.
———. “My Mother’s Dream.” In The Love of a Good Woman, 247–286. Toronto: Penguin, 1998.
———. “Save the Reaper.” In The Love of a Good Woman, 123–152. Toronto: Penguin, 1998.
———. “Silence.” In Runaway, 126–158. New York: Vintage, 2004.
———. “The View from Castle Rock.” In The View from Castle Rock, 27–87. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2006.
———. “Deep-Holes.” In Too Much Happiness, 93–115. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2009.
———. “Dimensions.” In Too Much Happiness, 1–31. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2009.
Redekop, Magdalene. Mothers and Other Clowns: The Stories of Alice Munro. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Rosin, Hanna. “The Case Against Breastfeeding.” The Atlantic, April 2009, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/the-case-against-breast-feeding/307311/.
Shaw, Rhonda. “Performing Breastfeeding: Embodiment, Ethics, and the Maternal Subject.” Feminist Review 78, no. 1 (2004): 99–116.
Taylor, Erin N. “Leaving the Debate over Science Behind: Questions to Consider.” Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy 34, no. 4 (2013): 384–392.
Taylor, Erin N. and Lora Ebert Wallace. “For Shame: Feminism, Breastfeeding, and Maternal Guilt.” Hypatia 27, no. 1 (2012): 76–98.
Wall, Glenda. “Moral Constructions of Motherhood in Breastfeeding Discourse.” Gender and Society 15, no. 4 (2001): 592–610.
Wolf, Joan B. Is Breast Best? Taking On the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
———. “The Politics of Dissent.” Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy 34, no. 4 (2013): 306–316.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jamieson, S. (2018). Ethics and Infant Feeding in Alice Munro’s Stories. In: DeFalco, A., York, L. (eds) Ethics and Affects in the Fiction of Alice Munro. Palgrave Studies in Affect Theory and Literary Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90644-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90644-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90643-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90644-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)