Breastfeeding in literature

[teff]

Can anyone think of any fiction that includes descriptions of breastfeeding? I recently read a story by Helen Simpson which had a lovely passage about nursing. The only other examples I can think of are a Maupassant story where a women breastfeeds a starving soldier and a sci-fi(?) story where a woman poisons someone using her breast milk. These aren't really the kind of thing I'm looking for; I'd like to read about breastfeeding as a normal part of life.

Thanks

[bundle]

really crap (imo) book but there are refs to to breastfeeding in Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson

[Sputnik]

They don't crop up very often, do they. One I can think of is in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver I think) where the heroine (single mother and seventeenth-century entrepreneur), breastfeeds during a business meeting!

[Mungarra]

At the end of Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, a woman breastfeeds a starving old man.

In Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn, the narrator is a man who feels excluded by his wife's breastfeeding.

Now that you've pointed it out, I can't think of any nice descriptions of a woman just breastfeeding a baby.

[foxytocin]

Google dr jack newman, breastfeeding quotes. you will get tonnes of references and quotes.

[Madlentileater]

there's a nice bit in one of Hardy's books, where the mum feeds the baby in church....can't give you any more detail though. In Woman on the Edge of Time, in one of the futures, men too can breastfeed and the woman from our time isn't happy that they now have that privelege (kind of)

[midnightexpress]

Not exactly 'literature' but in the Katie Morag books for kids by Mairi Hedderwick Katie Morag's mum has her norks out bfing the baby every other page in the pics - tis very lovely.

[BellaBear]

In I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, the mother is described as 'nursing Thomas' (the little brother) by Cassandra

[Madlentileater]

Lady Macbeth mentions it, but not in a nice way!!!

[Madlentileater]

Then there's Juliet and her Nurse (they seem to have a good relationship)

[princessglitter]

In Romeo and Juliet the nurse says how she fed Juliet till she was three.

[PrettyCandles]

In The Thorn Bird there's a bit where the dad takes all the boys out of the train compartment so that the mum can feed the baby, but Meggie has to stay behind because she's a girl. IIRC she has mixed feelings about the way she is included in the adult world of women by default, but excluded from her brothers' world, despite them all still being children.

[supercollider]

Beloved by Toni Morrison - it's harrowing stuff though, be warned.

[teff]

That's quite a collection of quotes by Jack Newman. I can't help wondering if the writers breastfed or saw their own children nursing. Maybe this is irrelevant and I should really be thinking about how far breastfeeding is visible/hidden in a society.

I'd forgotten about Beloved. I'd be very surprised if Morrison hadn't breastfeed her own children.

[naturelover]

In Property by Valerie Martin, a white slave owner latches on and drinks the breastmilk of her slave. Very strange book!

[Cies]

Not really literature, but in The Time Traveller´s wife Clare bfs her baby daughter. And she complains that her nipples hurt.

[WhatSheSaid]

The Backward Shadow by Lynne Reid Banks (sequel to The L-Shaped Room) has lovely passages about main character bfing her baby in her garden and how connected to her baby she feels etc. Written in the 60's.

[MutantSpaceGoat]

Goodnight Mr Tom has a lovely bit in it.

[MutantSpaceGoat]

macbeth has references to it but not in a good way.

[Smittals]

There's a reference in Lark Rise to Candleford I think about a woman bfing in church, something about her breast hanging like a heather bell and then covering it with a hanky for modesty. But literally only a sentence about it.

[Ellbell]

There's a beautiful simile in Dante's Paradiso where the heavenly souls rising up towards the Virgin Mary are compared to a bf baby holding out its arms to its mother after feeding.

E come fantolin che 'nver la mamma
tende le braccia, poi che 'l latte prese,
per l'animo che 'nfin di fuor s'infiamma;
ciascun di quei candori in su si stese
con la sua cima, si che l'alto affetto
ch'elli avieno a Maria mi fu palese.

(A baby, suckling, once it's full of milk,
will hold its arms out wide towards its mum
to make known outwardly its inner flame.
So, at their incandescent peaks, these gleams
stretched up. And this, to me, made clear what depths
of heartfelt love they bore towards Maria.

(Kirkpatrick trans.)

[BellaBear]

WhatSheSaid - it's a lovely bit, isn't it? About bfing the baby while lying down outside, and it starts to rain and the baby is first surprised and comes off but then goes back to feeding with light rain falling on them

[BellaBear]

This is a lovely thread, thanks for starting it

[morethanasong]

Probably not literature - ok, definitely not literature - but in Shopaholic and Baby the main character breastfeeds her baby and her best friend breastfeeds twins

[WhatSheSaid]

BellaBear, yes it is lovely, I just looked it up again as I was recalling it from memory before, there's a description of the baby making "anxious goldfish faces" when she stops feeding him because of the rain and then when she starts feeding him again he "closed his eyes in his customary bliss".

The preceding novel (L-Shaped Room) has a good description of birth too, about retreating into your own world during labour etc. And she is quite funny swearing at the nurse/midwife who is trying to get her to have drugs (gas and air, I suppose) right before the birth.

[laundrylover]

This is a lovely thread and reminded me how much I loved I Capture The Castle...

I think I sometimes miss references (did in Castle) when they refer to nursing and I always associate that word with simply holding/rocking IYSWIM.

I think Perfume must have bfing refs....did his mum pick him out of the fish guts to feed him??

I always tend to remember the bloody bottle feeding in kids books too.