FICT 7 (2) pp. 153–164 Intellect Limited 2017 Short Fiction in Theory & Practice Volume 7 Number 2 © 2017 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/fict.7.2.153_1 www.intellectbooks.com 153 ABSTRACT This article offers a critical reading of three short stories, each of which explores the extent to which its protagonist is literally, as well as figuratively, haunted by the desire for a child. Firstly, the notion of textual haunting is proposed through an intratextual reading of each of these short stories within the author’s work as a whole. Secondly, the hauntings undergone by the protagonists are analysed, both through close reading and through the notions of abjection and intergenerational haunting. Somewhat incongruously, truth becomes bolder and clearer when the supernatural element is present. (Kröger 2013: xi) This article will offer a critical reading of three short stories, all by major authors of their generation: Byatt’s ‘Gode’s Story’ (first published in 1990), Lurie’s ‘Waiting for the Baby’ ([1994] 1995) and Weldon’s ‘The Medium Is the Message’ (2000), and will seek to establish how the themes of haunting and KEYWORDS Fay Weldon A. S. Byatt Alison Lurie motherhood intertextuality intergenerationality folk tale uncanny HELEN E. MUNDLER Université Paris-Est Créteil The maternal impulse as ghost: Three hauntings in contemporary women’s fiction