ABSTRACT
In Noura, a play loosely based on Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Iraqi American playwright Heather Raffo explores the intersection of motherhood, identity, and immigration. When Maryam, a refugee from Mosul whom Noura has sponsored, arrives pregnant and unwed, Noura is forced to reexamine preconceptions of familial and maternal values. Through these two Iraqi women, Raffo creates a picture of the multiplicity of immigrant motherhood. Utilizing theorists Susan E. Chase and Sara Ruddick, this chapter examines Raffo’s depiction of motherhood in Noura as epitomizing both the empowering and oppressive nature of the maternal role. Employing Chase’s criteria of “bad” mothers, this chapter interrogates whether Noura or Maryam are considered “bad” mothers within the play, and how that determination of bad motherhood lies at the intersection of Western and non-Western views of motherhood.
