See Jane cry: rape and familial fragmentation in selected contemporary American novels

Abstract

Sexual assault against women in the United States has reached epidemic proportions. The violation of a child is even more horrific, but statistics suggest that the incidence of sexual abuse involving children is also more common than we would like to believe. A collective examination of contemporary novels that deal with the rape of America's children is belated and necessary in order to continue the facilitation of the dialogue that envisions its goal as the obliteration of sexual violence against women and children. My dissertation examines four rape victims and their perpetrators (usually fathers or father figures) in contemporary American fiction: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye , Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina , Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone , and Joyce Carol Oates's We Were the Mulvaneys . An interrogation of these works collectively suggests similar social criticisms that are difficult to ignore, particularly when they are viewed through the lens of the Dick and Jane primer. Juxtaposing her text, in which a young black girl is raped and impregnated by her father, with this primer, Morrison suggests that an attempt to adhere to the primer's guidelines is impossible for the black family of the 1940s. Using Morrison's novel as a theoretical guide, I next evaluate Allison's text, maintaining that the primer's strictures are just as impossible to achieve for a poor white family living in the 1950s. An analysis of Lamb's novel reveals the same truth, although Lamb's characters function during the 1960s. In each case, societal forces beyond the characters' control serve to create an environment that precludes any possibility of attaining the primer's assumptions concerning Father, Mother, and Daughter. In every instance, rape is the inevitable result. Oates's text, unlike the others, portrays a ¿storybook family.¿ However, Oates complicates traditional notions of the primer family's insular strength when the beloved Daughter is date-raped; the family banishes the child from their home, and is ultimately dissolved. In addition to discussing each of these novels, I ask a larger question: do these texts serve to create audience awareness about the issue of sexual violence against women and children, or do they simply reinforce traditional notions of Father/Mother/Daughter? Moreover, do other forces in our popular culture, such as movies, television programs, and even self-defense classes, contribute to a repressive patriarchal ideology that characterizes women as victims? While my dissertation certainly cannot answer all of these questions fully, my intention is to widen the scope of discussion, in order for sexual violence to be eradicated.