Postpartum Depression and the Performance of Motherhood in Yesteryear

Thematic Claim

In Caro Claire Burke’s novel Yesteryear, postpartum depression is not merely a personal struggle—it is a suffocating performance of motherhood enforced by religious duty, patriarchal expectations, and intergenerational silence. The protagonist, Natalie Heller Mills, experiences maternal ambivalence and deep despair, yet she is compelled to enact a script of joyful self-sacrifice. Her trauma is compounded by the constant sense of being watched—by God, by her mother, by her mother-in-law, and eventually by an internalized audience that applauds her misery. This theme echoes across three distinct phases of the plot: Natalie’s early postpartum days with her first child, her years at Yesteryear Ranch, and the long-term consequences revealed in the epilogue.

The novel argues that the pressure to perform “natural” motherhood is itself a trap—one that isolates women, erases their authentic feelings, and can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Through Natalie’s descent, Burke exposes the gap between the idealized mother and the real, exhausted, sometimes furious woman behind the smile.

Postpartum Collapse: Clementine’s Birth

The first major exploration of Natalie’s postpartum depression occurs after the birth of her daughter Clementine (Chapters 12–14). In the hospital, Natalie feels no bond with her baby. She describes Clementine’s gaze as “malevolent” and privately questions whether the child is truly hers. When she confides in her mother that “there’s been a mistake,” her mother dismisses the concern with platitudes and suggests a jog around the hospital to “get those endorphins up.” Natalie obeys, despite having just ripped her stitches, and collapses bleeding into a nurse’s arms. This episode encapsulates the theme: a mother’s physical and emotional pain is minimized, and she is told to perform wellness.

Natalie’s mother embodies the first layer of performance. She advises Natalie to imagine an audience watching her do housework, turning chores into a show of competence. At home after discharge, Natalie lies in bed wishing for death while her mother croons hymns. The only moment of honesty comes from her sister Abigail, who whispers that motherhood is “awful,” but Natalie rebukes her, calling birth control a sin. The religious framework forbids any acknowledgment of despair. The result is isolation—Natalie cannot speak her truth without violating the code of good womanhood.

The evidence from Chapter 20 shows Natalie’s daily ritual: a relentless cycle of breastfeeding, hiding her fury, and swallowing the desire to “light the house on fire.” Her mother-in-law Amelia offers a different kind of performance: pills (Mother’s Little Helper) and a demand that Natalie “put on lipstick.” Amelia herself sobs for help but then masks it with a smile. The performance is so ingrained that even the offer of medication comes with a wink and a lie about how well it works.

Yesteryear Ranch: The Good Days and Bad Days

After Natalie is transported to the uncanny past of Yesteryear Ranch, her postpartum despair takes on a new dimension. Now stripped of modern comforts and medical care, she must mother two children—Maeve and later Mary—while living in a pre-electric house with Old Caleb. The evidence from Chapter 27 details the “good days” and “bad days.” On good days, Natalie performs cheerfulness: she wakes smiling, scrambles eggs, and tells herself “how lucky am I.” On bad days, she lies in bed while hope drains away, cycling through thoughts of escape, suicide, and murder. The language of depression she uses—“purgatory,” “a nightmare, a contrived stage performance”—echoes her earlier postpartum experience. The performance has become a full-time role in a world that demands pioneer stoicism.

The character of Mary—Natalie’s daughter—becomes both witness and participant. On good nights, Mary brings tonic to help Natalie sleep; on bad nights, Mary avoids her. The child learns early that her mother’s moods are unpredictable and that love is conditional on performance. This replicates the pattern Natalie learned from her own mother. Meanwhile, Maeve clings to Natalie, talking incessantly, and on good days her voice is a comfort, but on bad days she is a torment. The maternal ambivalence intensifies: Natalie loves her children but also resents them as anchors to a life she cannot escape.

Long-Term Consequences: The Epilogue

The epilogue jumps five years ahead. Natalie is imprisoned for child abuse, and her daughter Mary has published a memoir titled The Book of Mary. The frame narrative reveals that the entire novel may be Mary’s story, filtered through Natalie’s perspective. The consequences of untreated postpartum depression are devastating: Natalie’s mental illness fractured her family beyond repair. The performance of motherhood ultimately collapsed into violence. Yet Mary’s memoir offers a bittersweet note of love and sorrow directed at her mother. The final image suggests that while Natalie failed the role, her daughter has found a voice of her own—one that breaks the silence and exposes the truth.

This trajectory mirrors the symbol of the lapel microphone, which represents surveillance and the recorded performance. Throughout the novel, Natalie feels watched, and the microphone becomes a metaphor for the constant scrutiny of mothers. The steel trap symbolizes the inescapable entrapment of motherhood as defined by patriarchal religion. Even the manosphere cabin—a place of toxic masculinity—reflects the gender roles that cage Natalie. The chicken coop massacre, while not directly tied to Natalie’s story, evokes the domestic violence and bloody ordinariness of life on the ranch—a stark contrast to the peaceful homesteading ideal.

Complexity and Contradiction

Burke does not present a simple message. Natalie loves her children and also wishes them dead; she performs kindness while feeling murderous rage. Her mother’s advice—to imagine an audience—is both a coping mechanism and a prison. Amelia, who offers pills and lipstick, is herself a broken woman sobbing for help. The novel suggests that the religious community that elevates motherhood also denies the reality of postpartum depression. There is no medical support, no therapy, no acknowledgment that a mother might need help rather than prayer. The contradiction lies in the fact that performance can sometimes keep a mother functional, but it also erodes her soul. Natalie’s eventual abuse of her children is not excused, but it is contextualized as the end point of a system that refused to see her suffering.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Natalie’s relationship with her mother influence her experience of postpartum depression?
   Her mother models performance as survival, advising Natalie to imagine an audience and to “doubt your doubts.” This prevents Natalie from expressing her true feelings and reinforces the idea that motherhood must appear effortless. She internalizes the demand to smile through pain.

2. What role does the image of the “audience” play in Natalie’s mental state?
   The audience represents the constant surveillance of women’s domestic labor. It initially helps Natalie function, but it also silences her authentic self. When she drops the pill into the toilet, she hears applause—suggesting her rebellion is itself a performance for a different audience.

3. Compare Amelia’s approach to motherhood with Natalie’s mother’s approach. How do both fail Natalie?
   Amelia relies on prescription drugs and alcohol to numb herself, offering Natalie pills as a “Mother’s Little Helper.” Natalie’s mother relies on religious denial and discipline. Both women avoid the emotional truth of postpartum despair and offer only band-aids: pills or platitudes.

4. Why does Natalie’s postpartum depression worsen in the Yesteryear timeline?
   In Yesteryear, she has no medical care, no privacy, and no escape from the physical demands of pioneer life. The performance of motherhood becomes total—every action is observed by Old Caleb and the children. The lack of modern resources amplifies her despair.

5. How does the epilogue reframe the theme of motherhood?
   The epilogue reveals that Mary’s memoir, The Book of Mary, reclaims the narrative. Mary does not excuse Natalie’s abuse, but she expresses love and sorrow. The silencing of the mother is undone by the daughter’s voice, suggesting that breaking the performance of perfect motherhood can lead to a more honest, if painful, legacy.