Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/sic/2.16.lc.6
Patriarchy and the Terror of Memory in Miriam Toews’s Women Talking (2018)
Martina Domines
Abstract
The essay discusses Miriam Toews’s novel Women Talking by focusing on the trauma of rape. Based on a true event that happened between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia, the novel follows the story of women and girls in the colony who were raped and now suffer from memory loss, traumatic memories, and the return of the repressed. By talking to each other and planning their escape, the women gain insight into the injustice of patriarchy within such a small religious community. The narrative moves from the idea of memory being synonymous with imagination, through the idea of traumatic memory as a trap, to the final idea of regained memory that, in the case of the raped women, serves as an epiphany. This essay will explore the ways in which memory functions in the novel to unravel the patriarchal discourse that keeps the women submissive and guilty of their own victimization. Traumatic memory will be examined through the lens of trauma theory (Caruth, Herman, Stampf, Pederson) and Judith Butler’s concepts of vulnerability and resistance.
Keywords
Mennonite community, trauma of rape, vulnerability, victim, perpetrator
Hrčak ID:
349179
URI
Publication date:
23.6.2026.
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