Abstrakt
Graham Swift's novels deal predominantly with the motif and theme of loss and its immediate as well as long-term consequences. It is mostly a loss of a beloved person - a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend - either actual or metaphorical, and the narrative revolves around someone who was affected by this loss and therefore cannot help but recall it as (s)he is constantly troubled by intrusive memories of what preceded and followed this incident.
These characters, who simultaneously tend to be the narrators, thus in their minds keep returning to certain past events which considerably determined their subsequent lives. Some of these events are truly traumatic while others "merely" unpleasant and unsettling, yet in all cases they allow the narration to explore the intricate and whimsical nature and working of human memory, including the employment of diverse coping mechanisms and strategies such individuals resort to in order to cope with the pangs of their disturbed psyche.
Mothering Sunday (2016) falls within the above framework by focusing on memories and recollections of the past central to which is a painful loss of a close person, yet it also differs from its author's preceding novels in several aspects, particularly by the fact that its main protagonist is a mature and renowned professional writer. This chapter attempts to demonstrate the ways in which Swift interconnects the themes of loss and memory with that of writing, on the level of both the plotline and metafictional commentary.