ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at several mother figures in Kubrick, among them Varinia in Spartacus (1960), Charlotte in Lolita (1962), Alex’s mom in A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry’s mother Lieschen and Lady Lyndon in Barry Lyndon (1975), Wendy in The Shining (1980), and Alice in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Almost all of them are housewives who are physically and/or psychologically abused by their husbands. When they boast the “Kubrick type,”—they are slim and long-legged, have broad shoulders, narrow hips, a full bosom, and delicate features—they are desired by other men, and their identity is threatened by the presence of women who look like them. Furthermore, they are often involved in love triangles, and they have to choose between their son/daughter and their husband or lover, or between their husband and their lover. Their desires and their role as caring and loving mothers are irreconcilable.
This last dichotomy is not only a feature of Kubrick’s diegetic worlds but also of our capitalist, patriarchal society. Mothers, in Kubrick’s films, can be called “prostitute housewives,” although the two nouns are in contraposition both from a legal and economical, and social and psychological perspective.
