Viw Magazine

Men's Weekly

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How fiction helps us understand the reality of a mother abandoning her newborn baby

  • Written by Diana Jefferies, Lecturer in Clinical Leadership, Western Sydney University
imageWhy is it we feel sympathy for George Eliot's Hetty Sorrel, but judge women who abandon their babies in real life?Wikimedia Commons

Often when the media report that a mother has abandoned her newborn baby, the community reacts with shock and disbelief. Yet, in fiction, when a woman feels so desperate and hopeless she believes abandoning her baby is...

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