Jefferies Diana, Horsfall Debbie, Schmied Virginia
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith 2751, Australia.
School of Social Science and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith 2751, Australia.
Women Birth. 2017 Feb;30(1):e24-e31. doi: 10.1016/j.wombi.2016.07.001. Epub 2016 Jul 18.
Often, there is a sense of shock and disbelief when a mother murders her child.
Yet, literary texts (plays, poems and novels) contain depictions of women experiencing mental illness or feelings of desperation after childbirth who murder their children.
To further understand why a woman may harm her child we examine seven literary texts ranging in time and place from fifth century BCE Greece to twenty-first century Australia.
A textual analysis approach examined how the author positioned the woman in the text, how other characters in the text reacted to the woman before, during, and after the mental illness or infanticide, and how the literary or historical critical literature sees the woman.
Three important points about the woman's experience were revealed: she is represented as morally ambiguous and becomes marginalised and isolated; she is depicted as murdering or abandoning her child because she is experiencing mental illness and/or she is living in desperate circumstances; and she believes there is no other option.
Literary texts can shed light on socio-psychological struggles women experience and can be used to stimulate discussion by healthcare professionals about the development of preventative or early intervention strategies to identify women at risk.
当一位母亲谋杀自己的孩子时，人们常常会感到震惊和难以置信。
然而，文学作品（戏剧、诗歌和小说）中描绘了经历产后精神疾病或绝望情绪的女性谋杀自己孩子的情节。
为了进一步理解女性为何会伤害自己的孩子，我们研究了七部跨越从公元前五世纪的希腊到二十一世纪澳大利亚的时间和地域的文学作品。
采用文本分析方法，研究作者如何在文本中塑造女性形象，文本中的其他角色在女性出现精神疾病或杀婴行为之前、期间和之后如何对其作出反应，以及文学或历史批评文献如何看待这位女性。
揭示了关于女性经历的三个要点：她被描绘成道德上模棱两可的形象，并被边缘化和孤立；她被描述为谋杀或遗弃自己的孩子是因为她正经历精神疾病和/或生活在绝望的环境中；并且她认为别无选择。
文学作品能够揭示女性所经历的社会心理挣扎，并可用于激发医疗保健专业人员关于制定预防或早期干预策略以识别处于风险中的女性的讨论。
