Feminism, Literature and Rape Narratives: Violence and Violation

by Gunne; Sorcha

• ISBN13: 9780415806084
• ISBN10: 0415806089
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-12-17
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The essays in this volume discuss narrative strategies employed by international writers when dealing with rape and sexual violence, whether in fiction, poetry, memoir or drama. In developing these new feminist readings of rape narratives, the contributors to this volume aim to incorporate arguments about trauma and resistance in order to establish new dimensions of healing. This book makes a vital contribution to the fields of literary studies and feminism, since while other volumes have focused on retroactive portrayals of rape in literature, to date none has focused entirely on the subversive work that is being done to retheorize sexual violence.Split into four sections, the volume considers sexual violence from a number of different angles. 'Subverting the Story' considers how the characters of the victim and rapist might be subverted in narratives of sexual violence. In 'Metaphors for Resistance', the essays explore how writers approach the subject of rape obliquely using metaphors to represent their suffering and pain. The controversy of not speaking about sexual violence is the focus of 'The Protest of Silence', while 'The Question of the Visual' considers the problems of making sexual violence visible in the poetic image, in film and on stage. These four sections cover an impressive range of world writing which includes curriculum staples like Toni Morrison, Sarah Kane, Sandra Cisneros, Yvonne Vera and Sharon Olds.

Author Biography

Zo Brigley Thompson is Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Northampton. Sorcha Gunne is a tutor and PhD candidate at the University of Warwick.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. ix
Foreword: 'An Unsafe Subject'	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xxi
Introduction: Feminism without Borders: The Potentials and Pitfalls of Retheorizing Rape	p. 1
Subverting the Story
Rape by Proxy in Contemporary Caribbean Women's Fiction	p. 23
Sabotaging the Language of Pride: Toni Morrison's Representations of Rape	p. 38
Revising Chicana Womanhood: Gender Violence in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street	p. 54
Resistance Metaphors
Between 'Awra and Arab Literary Feminism: Sexual Violence and Representational Crisis in Nawal El Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero	p. 71
Writing Rape: The Politics of Resistance in Yvonne Vera's Novels	p. 85
I1/legitimacy: Sexual Violence, Mental Health and Resisting Abjection in Camilla Gibb's Mouthing the Words and Elizabeth Ruth's Ten Good Seconds of Silence	p. 96
The Protest of Silence
Testimony and Silence: Sexual Violence and the Holocaust	p. 117
'Mum Is the Word': Gender Violence, Displacement and the Refugee Camp in Yasmin Ladha's Documentary-Fiction	p. 130
Double Violation? (Not) Talking about Sexual Violence in Contemporary South Asia	p. 146
Questioning Truth and Reconciliation: Writing Rape in Achmat Dangor's Bitter Fruit and Kagiso Lesego Molope's Dancing in the Dust	p. 164
The Question of the Visual
Signifying Rape: Problems of Representing Sexual Violence on Stage	p. 183
The Wound and the Mask: Rape, Recovery and Poetry in Pascale Petit's The Wounded Deer: Fourteen Poems after Frida Kahlo	p. 200
Rape, Power, Realism and the Fantastic on Television	p. 217
List of Editors and Contributors	p. 233
Index	p. 239
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