Description
Book SynopsisHow are well-known female characters from the Bible represented in late 20th-century novels? Bertrand shows how biblical women in contemporary literature are given a voice that rests not only on words but also on silences. Exploring the many forms that silence can take, she presents an innovative typology that sheds light on this profoundly meaningful phenomenon.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1Setting the Frame. Voices and Silences Part 1: The Silenced Feminine? 2Ambivalent Responses to the Bible 1Listening to the Implicit Dimension of the Bible 2Challenging Women’s Silencing 2.1Dumb Silencing 2.2Garrulous Silencing 2.3Deaf Silencing 3So Many Forms of Silencing to Denounce 1The Demoted, Repressed Feminine: The Wild Girl 2Amputated Subjecthood: The Handmaid’s Tale 3Boarding the Ark of the Refusées: The Book of Mrs Noah 4Beware of the Big Bad Lies: Sisters and Strangers 5The Voiceless Cipher in the Text: The Red Tent 6Battling Against God: Only Human 7Feminist Responses to Women’s Silencing Part 2: Voices Draped in Silences Section 1:Encountering the Other through Silences. Diamant’s the Red Tent and Roberts’s the Wild Girl 4Dinah’s Ode to the Plural Mother 1A Universe of Mothers and Goddesses 2The Bliss and Burden of Silence 2.1In the Image of the (Great) Mother(s) 2.2From Eloquent Silence to Silencing 2.3At One with the Mothers 5Mary Magdalene’s Quest for Identity and God 1Introduction into the Ineffable Divine 1.1A Voluptuous Dissolution of the Self 1.2Ineffable Beauty and Harmony 2Regaining Primeval Wholeness 2.1Sexuality as a Route to the Divine 2.2The Marriage between the Inner Man and the Inner Woman 2.3The Rehabilitation of the Female Divine Principle 2.4Celebrating Life and the Eloquent Silence of Intimacy 3The Harrowing of Hell and Resurrection 3.1Mary Magdalene’s First Trip to the Nether Realm 3.2On the Erroneous Belief in the Bodily Resurrection 3.3Mary Magdalene’s Second Harrowing Scene 4The Voice of Female Dissent 4.1Each of Us Is the Rock 4.2Sailing in and to Silence Section 2:Blurred Voices and Spectral Silences. Roberts’s the Book of Mrs Noah and Diski’s Only Human 6Mrs Noah’s Journey to Creativity 1On the Polyphonic, Silent Use of Epigraphy 1.1Echoing Donne’s Erratic Progress of a Multiform Soul 1.2In the Image of … Donne’s Soul: Outshining Noah’s Ark 1.3Sharing a Playful, Ironic Distance towards Authority 1.4Tempering with Donne’s Voice 2A Great Web of Blurred Voices 2.1Voice Blurring Across Narrative Levels 2.2Blurring within the Main Narrative Level 2.3A Mixture of Chaos and Rhythm Celebrating Plurality 2.4Delivered from Confinement, Delivered through Confinement? 2.5A Heavy Weight to Bear? 2.6Conjugating “To Come” 3Climbing Down Deep Inside, to Spectral Silence 3.1Partying with the Quintessential Silenced 3.2Speaking with(out) the Lost Mother 7Sarai’s Story Game of Competing Voices and Rival Desires 1Voice Blurring in a War of the Wor(l)ds 1.1At the Start, There Is an End 1.2Unidentified Narrative Voice for a Silenced Heroine 1.3Blurred Rival Versions of the Beginning(s) 2Sarai’s Early Encounter with Spectral Silence 2.1Primeval Loss and the Beginning of Desire 2.2The Beginning of the End, and Disappointing New Starts 3Sarai-Abram-God, a Destructive Triangular Desire 3.1When the One Finds Her Own Voice, the Other Finds God’s 3.2Enter I Am That I Am, the Homewrecker: Sarai Nil, God One 3.3The Battle of Wor(l)ds: Sarai One, God One 3.4The Choice of Laughter: Sarai Two, God One Section 3:Reticent Testimonies. Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale and Tennant’s Sisters and Strangers 8Offred’s Reticent Tale of Resistance 1An Introduction to Reticence 2Offred’s Polyphonic Testimony 2.1Dialoguing with the Narratee(s) 2.2Passing On Other Mutinous Female Voices 2.3Offred’s Chatty Discourse with the Maker 3Fighting for a Plurality of Identities and Meanings 3.1Remembering Her Former Selves 3.2Games of Words, Power and Desire with the Commander 3.3Offred as Secret Lover 9The Playfully Reticent Tale of Eve’s Journey 1An Introduction into Grandmother Dummer’s Reticence 2From the Passive Princess to the Demonic Lilith 3Subverting the Extremes: From Harlot to Madonna 4Female Lies and Truths: From Courtesan to Bluestocking Part 3: Closing Silences Voicing Openness 10Passing on the Heroine’s Voice 1Mary Magdalene’s Distrust of Words 2Eve’s Ultimate Subversive Enactment of Female Stereotypes 3Sarai and the Ineffable Human Horror 4Dinah’s Life Beyond the Grave 5The Irreconcilability of Mrs Noah’s Aspirations? 6Offred’s Blurred Voice 11Conclusion Works Cited Index
