THE CONFLICT BETWEEN IDEALIZED AND REAL MOTHERHOOD IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE

This article examines the conflict between idealized and real motherhood in twentieth-century literature, focusing on the representation of maternal identity, social expectations, and women's psychological experiences. Traditionally, motherhood has been associated with self-sacrifice, unconditional love, devotion, and moral responsibility. However, twentieth-century women writers increasingly challenged this idealized image by presenting mothers as complex individuals with personal desires, emotional vulnerabilities, and conflicting identities. Drawing on feminist literary criticism and motherhood studies, the article analyses maternal representations in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, May Sinclair's Life and Death of Harriett Frean, and Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Particular attention is paid to the tension between socially constructed expectations of motherhood and the actual emotional experiences of women. The study demonstrates how literary representations challenge the traditional image of the self-sacrificing mother and reveal the complexity of maternal identity within patriarchal and sociocultural structures.