A Feminist Reading of Anderson's Speak
Keywords:
Feminist theory, Rape myths, Rape culture, ResistanceAbstract
Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999) is her first landmark work addressing a social problem—rape—that is all too common to girls entering adolescence in the United States. This paper employs a feminist approach that presents the painful narrative of the rape victim and investigates the novel’s promotion of individual, resistant action within the oppressive social structure, achieved through what the postmodernist feminist Judith Butler calls “gender performativity”. It is this individual agency or subjectivity that enables the protagonist in Speak to overcome the adverse effects of rape, which is the product of a patriarchal system that regards females the second sex, to borrow the term by the French, feminist thinker Simone de Beauvoir. As such, Speak functions as a site of discursive resistance against such a patriarchal system by resisting some of the popularly held myths that discredit rape victims' narratives.
References
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Journal of University of Raparin E-ISSN: 2522 – 7130 P-ISSN: 2410 – 1036 23 .2019December, 3. No.http://journal.uor.edu.krd/index.php/JUR Vol.6 2).paper3DOI:https://doi.org/10.26750/Vol(6)
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Project Muse. Web. 10 January 2019. Lonsway Kimberly A., and Louise F. Fitzgerald. “Rape Myths: In Review.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 18 (1994): 133–164. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 22 May. 2018.
Malo-Juvera, Victor. “Speak: The Effect of Literary Instruction on Adolescents’ Rape Myth Acceptance.” Teaching of English 48.4 (2014): 407-427. Web. 21 March 2018.
Miller, Peggy, and Nancy Biele. “Twenty Years Later: The Unfinished Revolution.” Transforming a Rape Culture. Eds. Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth. Minneapolis: Milkweed, 1993. 47-54. Print.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2009: 711-22. Print.
O’Quinn, Elaine J. “Between Voice and Voicelessness: Transacting Silence in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.” ALAN Review 29.1 (2001): 54–58. Web. 1 May 2018.
Park, Jie Y. “Re-Imaging Reader-Response in Middle and Secondary Schools: Early Adolescent Girls’ Critical and Communal Reader Responses to the Young Adult Novel Speak.” Children’s Literature in Education 43 (2012): 191–212. Print.
Sanday, Peggy Reeves. “Rape-Free versus Rape-Prone: How Culture Makes a Difference.” Evolution, Gender, and Rape. Ed. Cheryl Brown Travis. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003. 337-363. Print
Schuhmann, Elizabeth C. “Shift Out of First: Third-Person Narration Has Some Advantages.” Two Decades of the ALAN Review. Ed. Patricia P. Kelly and Robert C. Small, Jr. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English (1999): 314–19. Web. 21 July 2018.
Tannert-Smith, Barbara. “Like Falling Up into a Storybook”: Trauma and Intertextual Repetition in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 35.4 (2010): 395–414. Jstor. Web. 1 April 2018.
Webster, Fiona. “The Politics of Sex and Gender: Benhabib and Butler Debate Subjectivity.” Hypaita 15.1 (2000): 1-22. Jstor. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.
Alsup, Janet. “Politicizing Young Adult Literature: Reading Anderson’s ‘Speak’ as a Critical Text.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 47.2 (2003): 158-166. Web. Jstor. 30 June 2018.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. “Page Turner: An Interview with Novelist Laurie Halse Anderson.” Interview by: Ellen Papazian. bitchmedia. 27 Aug. 2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2018. ---. Speak. New York: Square Fish, 2011. Print.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany- Chevallier. London: Vintage, 2010. Print.
Brownmiller, Susan. Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. New York: Simon and Schuster 1975. Print.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of identity. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “The national Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010 Summary Report.” Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 10 Aug. 2018. Digeser, Peter.
“Performativity Trouble: Postmodern Feminism and Essential Subjects.” Political Research Quarterly 47.3 (1994): 655-673. Jstor. Web. 11 April. 2018.
Hubler, Angela E. “It is Not Enough to Speak: Toward a Coalitional Consciousness in the Young Adult Rape Novel.” Children’s Literature 45 (2017): 114-137. Project Muse. Web. 10 April 2018.
Kitzinger, Celia, and Hannah Frith. “Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing a Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusal.” Discourse and Society 10.3
Journal of University of Raparin E-ISSN: 2522 – 7130 P-ISSN: 2410 – 1036 23 .2019December, 3. No.http://journal.uor.edu.krd/index.php/JUR Vol.6 2).paper3DOI:https://doi.org/10.26750/Vol(6)
Latham, Don. “Melinda’s Closet: Trauma and the Queer Subtext of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 31.4 (2006): 369-382.
Project Muse. Web. 10 January 2019. Lonsway Kimberly A., and Louise F. Fitzgerald. “Rape Myths: In Review.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 18 (1994): 133–164. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 22 May. 2018.
Malo-Juvera, Victor. “Speak: The Effect of Literary Instruction on Adolescents’ Rape Myth Acceptance.” Teaching of English 48.4 (2014): 407-427. Web. 21 March 2018.
Miller, Peggy, and Nancy Biele. “Twenty Years Later: The Unfinished Revolution.” Transforming a Rape Culture. Eds. Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth. Minneapolis: Milkweed, 1993. 47-54. Print.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2009: 711-22. Print.
O’Quinn, Elaine J. “Between Voice and Voicelessness: Transacting Silence in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.” ALAN Review 29.1 (2001): 54–58. Web. 1 May 2018.
Park, Jie Y. “Re-Imaging Reader-Response in Middle and Secondary Schools: Early Adolescent Girls’ Critical and Communal Reader Responses to the Young Adult Novel Speak.” Children’s Literature in Education 43 (2012): 191–212. Print.
Sanday, Peggy Reeves. “Rape-Free versus Rape-Prone: How Culture Makes a Difference.” Evolution, Gender, and Rape. Ed. Cheryl Brown Travis. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003. 337-363. Print
Schuhmann, Elizabeth C. “Shift Out of First: Third-Person Narration Has Some Advantages.” Two Decades of the ALAN Review. Ed. Patricia P. Kelly and Robert C. Small, Jr. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English (1999): 314–19. Web. 21 July 2018.
Tannert-Smith, Barbara. “Like Falling Up into a Storybook”: Trauma and Intertextual Repetition in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 35.4 (2010): 395–414. Jstor. Web. 1 April 2018.
Webster, Fiona. “The Politics of Sex and Gender: Benhabib and Butler Debate Subjectivity.” Hypaita 15.1 (2000): 1-22. Jstor. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.
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Published
2019-12-10
How to Cite
Ahmed, A. N., & Mohammed, R. Z. (2019). A Feminist Reading of Anderson’s Speak. Journal of University of Raparin, 7(1), 14–23. Retrieved from https://journal.raparinuni2024.org/index.php/JUR/article/view/Paper2
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Humanities & Social Sciences
