Death in Existentialism is a way of living based on which the individual manages his/her life from birth to death. Death is not only a physical phenomenon but also self-consciousness over the contingency of one’s death and managing one’s life. Thus, the most important existential crisis in one’s life is one’s confrontation with death. Accordingly, motherhood from pregnancy to delivery is a clear example of a period of a self-conscious existential crisis of survival. This involves the mother’s self-consciousness over her death and that of her baby, the baby who is part of her existence before its birth. Therefore, the mother’s psyche in pregnancy is always a battlefield for her or her baby’s death and survival as well as the contingent death of herself or the baby in the moment of delivery. The symbolic death of the woman before motherhood, her entrance to the purgatory of pregnancy, and her liberation in the heaven of motherhood is philosophically a kind of metamorphosis in the state of humankind and a clear definition of existence through the figure of the mother. This paper tries to highlight the role of mothers in manifesting this aspect of existence in the whole creation.
hajari, L., hajari, M. J., & keshavaz, S. (2016). An Existential Investigation into Motherhood: the Existential Role of the Mother in Defining Creation and Death. Women Studies, 7(18), 1-21.
MLA
lila hajari; mohamad javad hajari; shahin keshavaz. "An Existential Investigation into Motherhood: the Existential Role of the Mother in Defining Creation and Death". Women Studies, 7, 18, 2016, 1-21.
HARVARD
hajari, L., hajari, M. J., keshavaz, S. (2016). 'An Existential Investigation into Motherhood: the Existential Role of the Mother in Defining Creation and Death', Women Studies, 7(18), pp. 1-21.
VANCOUVER
hajari, L., hajari, M. J., keshavaz, S. An Existential Investigation into Motherhood: the Existential Role of the Mother in Defining Creation and Death. Women Studies, 2016; 7(18): 1-21.
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