ABSTRACT
Luce Irigaray's question in the opening pages of Sexes and Genealogies encapsulates the feminist challenge in articulating alternatives to women's access to culture, in defining women in their full ontological dimension, in rediscovering or inventing the words. This chapter explores Irigaray's "genealogies of women" in Michèle Roberts's short fiction, or the establishment of an ethical order which necessarily requires the recovery of the maternal body – vertical dimension – in order to successfully accomplish bonds of collaboration among women – horizontal dimension. Roberts's fiction is a literary attempt to come to terms with the loss of the mother, whether that is literal or metaphorical. Roberts often infuses women's genealogies with a mythical dimension, encompassing various narratives which have historically encapsulated particular visions of femininity, aiming at eventually challenging many of their received assumptions that ultimately mirror patriarchal ideology. Roberts's During Mother's Absence opens up with the story entitled "Anger", which sets the keynote for the collection as a whole.
