Between Vulnerability and Resilience: Exploring Motherhood in Emma Donoghue’s Room

Abstract

The present chapter explores the ways in which Emma Donoghue’s acclaimed novel Room (2010) responds to, yet overcomes, contemporary stereotypes and notions on motherhood, by creating a challenging portrait of a young mother who must make enormous sacrifices for the well-being of her child, but who also finds in him a reason to live. Framing the discussion within contemporary work on aspirational motherhood and the role of maternity in resilience-building, it will prove how, through the character of Ma, Donoghue exposes the delicate balance between vulnerability and resilience that maternity entails. In addition, it will analyse the author’s exploration of the impact motherhood has on women’s identity and how maternal resilience does not necessarily imply coping mechanisms that allow a return to a previous state of being. The result will be shown to be a compelling analysis of society’s anxieties about mothers, and their difficulties in facing the demands of the aspirational form of maternity that is unrealistically imposed on them as an effective form of control.