Unyielding Bonds: The Role of Motherhood in Jaycee Dugard’s Survival Narrative A Stolen Life

Abstract

This paper explores the theme of single motherhood in A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard, framing motherhood as an act of survival, resilience, and reclamation of agency. Dugard’s memoir, while narrating the trauma of abduction and captivity, simultaneously foregrounds the transformative power of maternal identity. Motherhood becomes not merely a biological role but a means of endurance, where nurturing her children enables Dugard to resist dehumanization and sustain her will to live. The study examines how the text portrays single motherhood under conditions of extreme constraint, redefining it as both a burden and a source of empowerment. Through the lens of survival, the paper argues that Dugard’s narrative shifts the discourse on motherhood from conventional domestic ideals to a radical act of self-preservation and resilience against systemic violence. Ultimately, Dugard’s memoir reframes single motherhood as a narrative of strength, where survival is inseparable from maternal responsibility. The memoir displaces conventional depictions of motherhood as domestic sanctuary, instead portraying it as a crucible of endurance where love becomes indistinguishable from survival. In this way, Dugard’s testimony situates single motherhood within the broader discourse of trauma and feminist life-writing, foregrounding maternal agency as a transformative force that resists erasure. Ultimately, A Stolen Life renders motherhood not as a passive condition but as a radical act of survival that binds memory, identity, and the will to live. This piece of work brings the soothing, comforting and the unsettling side of motherhood through three strands. The first strand bespeaks the motherhood as survival the second strand bespeaks the paradox of motherhood, and the third strand bespeaks the burden of motherhood in captivity.