Zhara Jaffrey

October 20, 2010

Topic:

I would like to explore how different women write rape and sexual abuse memoirs.  What some writers decide to include while others feel a necessity to omit. I would also include how some women give more detail to the unfortunate occurrence while other emphasize how they feelings and emotions. I am also interested in the circumstances they undergo and the reactions they receive from their family and community. In Lucky by Alice Sebold, she tells the reader that her father at one point did not understand how the situation was a rape when there was no weapon during the act. The community spoke of it as an accident and not a rape. Sebold’s writing shows that no one wanted to fully acknowledge that she had been raped and she felt there was a different manner in which people looked at her in as opposed to others. I would like to read and discover through research about whether some of the other women writers felt the same, did they have acceptance, closer, and what they under went in comparison to Sebold.

I am also looking forward to look into psychological research about information in rape cases. For example what rape victims tend not to speak about, how much of what happens do they express and how much do they hide. Do victims of rape tend to live a near normal life or is the rape something they have night mares about for years. I would also try to research and find articles about the authors and get information about the events in that manner.

3 texts are

Lucky by Alice Sebold

Telling: A Memoir of Rape & Recovery by Patricia Weaver Francisco

I am a Central Park Jogger: A story of Hope and Possibility By Tisha Meili

Sources:

School Library Journal 49 no11 173 N 2003

Book Digest Plus-Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery (Book) Book reviews

Wilsons Web-http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/results/external_link_maincontentframe.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.43