Chicken

Chicken is a novel about a working-class young woman, Claudia, and a year in her life when her mother, Belinda, abandons the family. Chicken invites the reader to consider the social taboo of a woman who opts for herself leaving her children behind when we learn of the constant burden of shame placed upon such a woman even prior to her abandonment. Chicken examines the gendered responsibilities of family, including the emotional and physical labour expected of the female body, and frames it through Claudia that the reader can discover this reality by having someone 'walk a mile' in the shoes of the mother. The mother is absent for most of the novel, and this raises questions of agency and the 'right' of maligned women to give voice to themselves. Chicken attempts to contribute to an emerging working-class discussion through a class-realism lens which aims to alter prevailing public shame cultures and provide space for empathy and change towards a fairer society.

The essay addresses the relationship between Claudia and Belinda and analyses other problematic mothers across a range of media. It speaks to the inequality between classes and genders and examines why working-class women struggle to speak up and whether the novel is an apt place to do that.