Literature and Medicine

Abstract:

Literary narratives treating infertility metaphorically or thematically abound, but stories about women's individual experiences with infertility and assisted reproduction are less scrutinized by literature scholars. Acknowledging the role of online writing in the proliferation of such stories in the post-in vitro fertilization era, this article applies the tools of narrative analysis to a set of social media narratives authored by women undergoing Assisted Reproduction Therapy. I argue that examining the guiding metaphors and central conflicts of such texts reveals their significant interventions into traditional narratives about childbearing as well as their complicated complicity in the raced and classed elements of the contemporary fertility industry.