Synopses & Reviews
Judith Herman has noted that "the most common post-traumatic disorders are those not of men in war but of women in civilian life." How have women survived, both individually and collectively, in the face of unimaginable trauma? In this important new book, Suzette Henke finds evidence that women often use writing in order to heal the wounds of psychological trauma. She terms this method "scriptotherapy," the process of writing out and writing through traumatic experience in the mode of therapeutic re-enactment.
Shattered Subjects explores the autobiographical writings of six 20th-century women authors who experienced life-shattering trauma and used their writings as a means for survival and healing. The literary testimonies of Colette, Hilda Doolittle, Anais Nin, Janet Frame, Audre Lorde, and Sylvia Fraser provide startling evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder precipitated by rape, incest, childhood sexual abuse, grief, unwanted pregnancy, pregnancy-loss, or a severe illness that threatens the integrity of the body. Henke examines the compelling works evinced by these experiences for their patterns of similarity as well as their uniqueness and analyzes traumatic narrative as the focal point of a large body of autobiographical practice representing the genre of narrative recovery.
Shattered Subjects suggests that the powerful medium of written autobiographical testimony may allow the resolution or reconfiguration of the most emotionally distressing experiences.
Synopsis
In this important book, Suzette Henke finds evidence that women often use writing in order to heal the wounds of psychological trauma. She terms this method "scriptotherapy," the process of writing out and writing through traumatic experience in the mode of therapeutic re-enactment.
Shattered Subjects explores the autobiographical writings of six twentieth-century women authors--Colette, Hilda Doolittle, Anais Nin, Janet Frame, Audre Lorde, and Sylvia Fraser. They provide startling evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder precipitated by rape, incest, childhood sexual abuse, grief, unwanted pregnancy, pregnancy-loss, or a severe illness that threatens the integrity of the body.
About the Author
Suzette A. Henke is Thruston B. Morton Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Louisville. She is the author of
James Joyce and the Politics of Desire and
Joyce's Moraculous Sindbook: A Study of "Ulysses." Table of Contents
Introduction *
Part l: Colette's Autofictions: Genre and Engenderment : The Earthly Paradise;
My Apprenticeships : The Specter of Willy;
Break of Day ; Postscript *
Part ll: H. D.: Psychoanalytic Self-Imaging The Gift ; Adult Trauma and the
Madrigal Cycle:
Asphodel and
Bid Me to Live *
Part lll: Anais Nin's Interior Cities: Incest, Anxiety, and Father/Daughter Loss Father Loss and Incest; Daughter Loss and Maternal Anxiety; Narrative Recovery *
Part lV: Janet Frame's New Zealand Autobiography : A Postcolonial Odyssey * Part V: Audre Lorde's African-American Testimony : Biomythography: Zami: A New Spelling of My Name ; Autopathography: The Cancer Journals and A Burst of Light * Part Vl: Sylvia Fraser's My Father's House : A Canadian Memoir of Sexual Trauma and Narrative Recovery * Conclusion * Notes * Works Cited and Consulted