“A Mother-of-Sufferer”: Subversive Mothering in the Caribbean and Irish Traditions

Abstract

Palko explores cultural and political conceptions of Mother Ireland and Mother Africa to highlight an Irish–Caribbean connection and develop a theoretical understanding of the maternal imaginary, which she argues is marked by women writing a new form of literary motherhood into being and in turn inspiring lived experiences through the fictional model. Palko develops a theory of Feminist Maternal Ethics that incorporates maternal theory, an ethics of abortion and motherhood, and an ethics of female sexuality, to guide comparative literary analysis of Irish and Caribbean texts. A close reading of poems by Grace Nichols and Paula Donlon demonstrates overlapping influences in Irish and Caribbean literatures and highlights the maternal patterns that recur in each culture.