‘Alt var blod og intet var lykke’

Fødselshorror og evig vedligeholdelse i Olga Ravns Mit arbejde

Forfattere

  • Iben Engelhardt Andersen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/pas.v35i84.124941

Nøgleord:

olga ravn, arbejde, reproduktivt arbejde, reproductive work, motherhood, novel, roman, work, kitchen sink realism, birth, fødsel, moderskab

Resumé

This essay examines the connections of motherhood and work in Olga Ravn’s novel Mit arbejde (2020). The novel takes up a feminist-marxist tradition for considering reproduction and maintenance as work that creates value for capitalism, but which remains unacknowledged by the general economy. It combines genres of horror and kitchen sink realism in order to describe the pain of giving birth and the toil of motherhood. While the narrator/protagonist is unable to free herself from the everyday responsibilities of reproductive work, she does find moments of complex happiness in the both vital and repetitive care work. Structured upon the temporality of motherhood the novel points to how the work of reproduction might make other futures possible.

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Publiceret

2020-12-31

Citation/Eksport

Andersen, I. E. (2020). ‘Alt var blod og intet var lykke’: Fødselshorror og evig vedligeholdelse i Olga Ravns Mit arbejde. Passage - Tidsskrift for Litteratur Og Kritik, 35(84), 119–123. https://doi.org/10.7146/pas.v35i84.124941