Motherhood, Identity, and Institutional Control in Jessamine Chan's The School for Good Mothers

Abstract

Postmodern fiction has constantly challenged the false sense of universality of the human condition, frequently sustained by former social movements. From the 1970s onwards, female authors utilized it as a foundation for their stories as a means to oppose it critically. Within this context, motherhood became a recurring topic to expose the tension between social expectations, motivated by this perception of totality, and personal identity. From this perspective, this study investigates the connection of motherhood with identity and institutional control through the dystopian novel The School for Good Mothers (2022), by Jessamine Chan, utilizing a textual analysis in light of Belsey (2013), to examine the ways in which institutional control manipulates identity as a tool of power. Drawing upon Feminist and Cultural Studies, this research suggests the delegitimization of mothering as an individual experience to strengthen motherhood as an institution (Rich, 1976) through the objectification and idealization of maternal figures, which results in the alienation of mothers from their identities. Thus, motherhood, a social construct guided by cultural traditions, societal expectations, and power, is stressed as a tool to impose regulations on women’s autonomy, subjectivity, and identity within society.