Schwarz, JanineJanineSchwarz2024-04-152024-04-152024978-3-86309-973-2https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/94615This chapter investigates the representation of motherhood in Gillian Flynn’s novel Sharp Objects (2006). The novel’s focus on the domestic and maternal illustrates its participation in contemporary thematic trends in two broader genres: crime fiction and domestic noir. Based on a close reading of the novel’s representation of motherhood, this chapter argues that Sharp Objects reinforces patriarchal ideology on two levels. Firstly, the novel echoes the cultural myth of Mother Blame by creating a genealogy of perverted motherhood in the family of protagonist and first-person narrator Camille, connecting them through Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy as a plot device. In so doing, it also reinforces the essentialist gender ideology of New Momism, coined by Douglas and Michaels, because motherhood is perverted either through neglect or ‘over’-nurture. Secondly, the novel implies that these perversions of motherhood are connected to a ‘lack’ of patriarchal order by representing Camille’s family as matriarchal, and therefore ‘toxic,’ because fathers are absent and passive. The chapter shows how the novel meaningfully contrasts Camille’s biological, matriarchal family with an idealized example of a nuclear, patriarchal family particularly towards its end: because Camille experiences a significant improvement of her mental health while staying with the nuclear, patriarchal family, Sharp Objects thereby valorizes this family unit, suggesting that motherhood becomes perverted and harmful for children especially within familial structures that ‘lack’ a patriarchal order.engMotherhoodMother BlameNew Momismpatriarchal ideologymatriarchyMunchausen Syndrome by Proxydomestic noir810conferenceobject