Givers and Gifts, Mothers and Writers

Abstract This article explores some of the ways in which women writers represent conception, gestation, abortion and delivery, at times by imagining motherhood in terms of scarcity, war or defeat. Drawing upon on the work of philosophers like Hannah Arendt, Adriana Cavarero and Lisa Guenther as well as research into biology, obstetrics and dental science, I analyse how the writings of Isabella Whitney, Edith Wharton, Margery Kempe and Buchi Emecheta often supply strategies for survival and reproduction in terms of transforming the meaning of motherhood and occasionally refusing new life.