NARRATING VICTIMHOOD: RAPE IN THE 21ST-CENTURY FRENCH IMAGINARY

Abstract

Narratives featuring the figure of the female rape victim have existed for centuries throughoutFrench literary and cinematic history, often reinforcing prevalent misconceptions about what constitutes victimhood. However, recent works of memoir, fiction, and film have attempted to disrupt public perceptions of victimhood by deviating from normative expectations and dismantling entrenched stereotypes that surround the victim. While the general topic of rape in French literature and cinema has been addressed in scholarship, representations of the female rape victim in contemporary French works have not been specifically examined. My dissertation, “Narrating Victimhood: Rape in the 21st-Century French Imaginary,” fills this critical lacuna by juxtaposing and analyzing multiple representations of the victim in formally experimental works by authors such as Virginie Despentes, Gaspar Noé, Hélène Duffau, Loulou Robert, and Vanessa Springora. In so doing, this interdisciplinary project participates in an emerging conversation about the ways in which female rape victims are portrayed in French literature, cinema, and media and is therefore a timely and necessary study as rape, incest, victim blaming, domestic violence, harassment, and consent are increasingly urgent matters in contemporary socio- and biopolitical discourse. I argue that the works I examine subvert audience expectations by offering unconventional—sometimes shocking—narratives that not only dispute common tropes about rape (e.g., that it is always violent and forceful) but also dismantle popular myths that surround the victim (e.g., that she is always weak/passive and that her behavior causes her attack). These writers and filmmakers, I assert, notably deploy a wide variety of aesthetic and rhetorical techniques in order to render a nuanced and dynamic portrait of victimhood. I ultimately emphasize the ways in which writers and filmmakers who reject formulaic approaches to representing rape victimhood successfully build new narratives that draw attention to the complexity of victimhood and survival.