Date of Award

Spring 2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

English

Committee Director

Jeffrey H. Richards

Committee Member

Edward Jacobs

Committee Member

Sheri Reynolds

Committee Member

Imitaz Habib

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64 L325 2009

Abstract

Sexual assault is widespread throughout America; unfortunately, because this crime breeds shame in its victims, most sexual assault victims never tell anyone. But, as Confessional writing became popularized in contemporary society and more victims felt the need and space to speak out, the rape autobiography developed as an essential tool in understanding the epidemic of sexual violence and the ways in which victims internalize their experiences.

Since sexual assault is a societal problem, and narratives arc a tool for victims to express themselves and expose the sexual violence within a society, rape narratives should be analyzed as windows into American's sociopolitical history, as literary theorist Fredric Jameson would suggest. Jameson's supposition is that texts hold a "political unconscious" because their authors develop and exploit a structural element of their writing in an attempt to symbolically reveal and resolve a conflict between social classes. Contemporary American autobiographers of rape narratives focus on what rape stole from them in an attempt to contest society's aced to separate themselves from rape and distinguishing themselves from raped people. As these autobiographies latch on to a personal trait that rape robbed them of, it is noteworthy that there are four trait types: social connection, virtue, female agency, and freedom. Each of these categories of loss has held long-standing value for society, as seen by popular writing of various literary movements in America. However, Jameson proposes another level of analysis as well, which is the historical. The ideology behind trauma narratives, where victims identify and emphasize traumatic loss, is traceable through numerous psychological theories of identity formation and trauma. Therefore, rape memoirs are a separate, valuable form of narrative because they depict what characteristics arc attached to our identities and publicize the traumatic loss of those qualities during sexual violence as an important characteristic of victimology and the trauma narrative.

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DOI

10.25777/02na-6843

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