As a non-mother, it has given me deeper, more complex insight into the sacrifices being a mother entails and the societal pressures and expectations the role “mom” carries. This helps keep my own impulse to quickly judge and judge harshly in check. In all of the other resources I have encountered, both primary and secondary, this lense has allowed me to take into account the needs of both the mother and child, how these often conflict, and the varied emotions and tensions this can create in the maternal figure who is held entirely responsible for the safety and well-being of the baby. Within my research, Almond’s explanation of maternal ambivalence has been incredibly useful. By closely examining the actions, intentions, and emotions of each individual, real or fictional, Almond brings into question what makes maternal ambivalence seem so unacceptable in our society why both frustration and love towards a helpless, needy, crying infant seem so incompatible when housed within the body of one mother why the stigma against anger and hatred as a mother has so dramatically increased in Western society in our time period despite the presence of (and during some historical times, the social acceptance of) filicide, infanticide, and neonaticide across all cultures and time periods and why and how society and the media are harsh towards mothers who are “bad,” those mothers who fully unleash their rage, the “monster within,” and harm their children physically, psychologically, or even murder them. To do this, the author examines case studies from her work as a psychoanalyst as well as literary case studies, in which she analyzes the behavior and motives of fictional characters and/or authors. In the book The Monster Within, Barbara Almond discusses the notion of maternal ambivalence, meaning the varying emotions mothers feel towards their children that range from hatred to intense love (what Almond refers to as “motherlove”), which can shift rapidly, appear to contradict each other, and often occur simultaneously. Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2010. The Monster Within: The Hidden Side of Motherhood. This book examines maternal ambivalence and its manifestations in our society through a psychoanalytic framework, examining both clinical and literary case studies.Īlmond, Barbara.
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