Absent Mothers and Orphaned Fathers

Download or read book Absent Mothers and Orphaned Fathers written by Susan E. Gustafson and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gustafson provides a comprehensive overview of Lessing's comments on the structure and purpose of the domestic tragedy within the context of his Laokoon essay, demonstrating that the fundamental psychic-deep structures informing his aesthetic and dramatic production are male narcissism and the abjection of the woman/the mother. As opposed to earlier studies of gender/generic questions in Lessing's dramas, this analysis explicates the theoretical basis for the rigid codification of gender which informs Lessing's fictional symbolic order.