Emotions Surrounding Motherhood: Reflections on Precoz by Ariana Harwicz

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the configuration of motherhood in Precoz by Ariana Harwicz. This novel marks a turning point, as to the study of affect theory, emotional supports, and mediating spaces, as well as the analysis of voice in discourse according to different viewpoints. This is so, because feelings and voice outweigh the plot. The way in which the emotional support does not coincide with the legitimate discourse on motherhood is depicted. Secondly, the mother is questioned by institutions and state agents that intervene in the filial relationship, ways of caring, and in the affective orientation. Thus, rather than explicitly criticizing gender mandates, the aim is to analyze, from the affective turn perspective, gender studies, and feminist anthropology—the agency of mediating spaces, emotions and the qualities of the narrator’s voice, since these aspects disrupt, on one hand, thematic representation and, on the other, gender roles and the kinship system that structures them.