Bad mothers in books: a literary litany

As Mother's Day looms, we are surrounded by saintly images of perfect matriarchs. But what of the worst mums in fiction?

A quick glance at the racks of Mother's Day cards would turn anyone off motherhood: of course we love our mothers, but really would we truly express it like that? And is there a faint feeling that the more extreme, gushing cards might be chosen by those whose relationships with their mothers are not, in fact, perfect? So it might be refreshing to take a turn round some imperfect parents in fiction: here we go with the bad mothers' literary litany.

Mrs Bennet from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is always Exhibit A but her real crime seems to be that she embarrasses her sensitive children. Read it as a teenager and you wince for poor mortified Lizzie and Jane, thinking perhaps of times when our own mother said the wrong thing. The older reader more robust, a parent can think it is the positive duty and pleasure of a mother to embarrass her child from time to time, to stop them getting on their high horse. And, as apologists of Mrs B have pointed out, at least she is trying to do something about the family's woeful situation: she appreciates the poverty and misery that will face them all if marriages are not made. Perfect papa Mr B so lovely, so witty at the expense of his family appears not to give a toss about what will happen to his daughters.