Captive Bodies: American Women Writers Redefine Pregiancy and Childbirth

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While classifying the pregnant condition as a state of captivity might elicit negative connotations, Marotte underscores how American women writers have envisioned the condition of captivity as one in which the pregnant woman can realize, perhaps even find power in, a challenging and disturbing loss of subjectivity. In Captive Bodies, Marotte explores the use of the term “captive,” locating in it a multivalent meaning. To be captive in pregnancy is to reach a kind of sublime, a rapturous experience that has both negative and positive effects on the experiencing subject. In working with both primary and theoretical texts, Marotte reveals a genre of “pregnancy literature” that will validate this subject as one worthy of continued intellectual study and critical attention.