IN:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Partit\u00fara Irodalomtudom\u00e1nyi foly\u00f3irat, Volume XIX.\u00a0, Issue 2, 2024, page 47-64 ,\u00a0ISSN 1336-7307<\/span><\/p>\n DOI:\u00a0<\/strong>10.17846\/PA.2024.19.2.47-64<\/p>\n Abstract:<\/strong><\/p>\n The paper addresses the representations of normative motherhood and respectability politics in the context of Black American motherhood in two contemporary short stories by African American women writers: Alice Walker\u2019s \u201cThe Abortion\u201d (1981) and Nafissa Thompson-Spires\u2019s \u201cBelles Lettres\u201d (2018). After introducing the stories, I provide a brief historical overview of Black American mothers\u2019 social status, which I frame within the prescriptive discourses of respectability politics and normative motherhood. After interrogating the stories\u2019 treatment of four of the pillars of normative motherhood and the influence of race on the three textual mothers\u2019 experiences, I argue that the intertwining of respectability politics and normative motherhood prompt the women in question to perceive motherhood as a performance carried out for the benefit of an external gaze. Furthermore, I examine the narrative consequences of prioritizing the figure of the ideal mother as well as consider the social and personal repercussions of either embracing or rejecting the imperatives of both discourses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n