DUAL IDENTITY AS RESISTANCE in the HANDMAID's TALE and KNOW MY NAME a Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of T

OBTAINING THE SELF: DUAL IDENTITY AS RESISTANCE IN THE HANDMAID’S TALE AND KNOW MY NAME A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English By Rebecca Grace Horoschak, B.A. Washington, D.C. April 13, 2021 Copyright 2021 by Rebecca Grace Horoschak All Rights Reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout the writing of this thesis, I have received a great deal of support and assistance. I would first like to extend my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Lori Merish, without whose help this thesis would not exist. Her unwavering support and encouragement provided me with the confidence to persevere when I felt overwhelmed. Her extensive knowledge was invaluable to defining my topic and research focus. She consistently improved my writing with her edits and her high expectations resulted in a product that I am truly proud of. My many, many thanks. I would also like to thank my second reader Carolyn Forché for her guidance and assistance in the areas of witness literature and the psychological healing from trauma. Her expertise provided significant help in ensuring my thesis’s accuracy and clarity. My many thanks to all of my graduate professors who helped me hone my skills as a reader, writer, and editor. I have never been so challenged academically and gained such paradigm shifting knowledge – the experience has been priceless. To Pamela Fox, Heidi Hamilton, Daniel Shore, Lori Merish, Anna De Fina, Brian Hochman, Lena Orlin, Amanda Phillips, Sherry Linkon, and Matthew Pavesich, thank you all for sharing your passion for learning with me. This past year has presented many challenges and I would not have been able to persevere with my studies without the help of my friends and family. To my mother and father who have supported me in getting this degree from its origin as a simple thought to the completion of this thesis, I owe you more than I can repay. I would not have begun my journey into graduate education if it were not for your support. I love you both dearly and hope I have made you proud. To my classmates who have become my friends, thank you for sharing your wisdom, advice, and support over the past year. To Erin Herbst, Clare Reid, Allison Harris, Susie Zhang, Antonia Nagle, Sadia Yasmin, Kathryn Baker, Josh Kim, Julie Winspear, Siwei Wang, Mary Shannon, and all of my classmates who have constantly aided and challenged me to become a better student, writer, and scholar, you have my deepest thanks. Lastly, I’d like to thank my most constant friend and the only reason I have some days to get out of bed, my corgi Bear. Fighting cancer for the entirety of my schooling at Georgetown, Bear has never succumbed. He has always provided me with a smile, a kiss, and a reason to care for someone other than myself. His is the constant, uncomplicated love that reminds us of the joy that exists in the world, even when faced with humanity’s worst as discussed in this thesis. Bear, I will love you ‘til your last day and beyond, always thankful for the gift of your presence in my life. You will be my best baby Bear cub always. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 A Brief History of Women’s Rights in America .....................................................5 Rape Culture as a Result of Male Supremacy/Female Subjugation ......................10 Trauma and the Female “Self” ...............................................................................13 Dual Identities in The Handmaid’s Tale and Know My Name ..............................18 Chapter 1: The Dual Identities of Offred/June in The Handmaid’s Tale ..........................21 Historical Context of the Novel .............................................................................23 Welcome to Gilead ................................................................................................30 The Identity of June ...............................................................................................35 The Identity of Offred ............................................................................................42 Identity as a Tool for Resistance and Subversion ..................................................48 Conclusion .............................................................................................................51 Chapter 2: The Dual Identities of Chanel Miller/Emily Doe in Know My Name ..............57 The Division of Chanel Miller and Emily Doe ......................................................63 Integrating the Identities of Chanel Miller and Emily Doe ...................................70 Telling Emily’s Story .............................................................................................79 Towards an Anti-Rape Culture ..............................................................................85 Conclusion .............................................................................................................96 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................98 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................100 iv “But above all these, we claim the right to her own person. For here lies the corner stone [sic] of all the injustices done woman, the wrong idea from which all other wrongs proceed. She is not acknowledged as mistress of herself. From her cradle to her grave she is another’s. We do indeed need and demand the other rights of which I have spoken, but let us first obtain ourselves. Give us ourselves, and all that belongs to us will follow. We claim that no lawmaker, man or husband, shall control woman except as man allows himself to be controlled.” - Ernestine Rose, speaking to the National Women’s Rights Convention, 1853 v INTRODUCTION I do not believe I am making a controversial statement by stating that men and women are different 1. When looking specifically at American society and the historical treatment of women in America, this difference becomes even more stark. One large disparity between the challenges women and men face is the prevalence of sexual assault on female bodied people – a 1998 study on sexual violence in America found that women are disproportionately affected, with 75% of rape victims being female (Tjaden, 4) . Using more recent data, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) places the percentage higher, indicating that 90% of rapes involve a female victim (Scope of the Problem: Statistics). In order to better understand what creates this disparity of sexual violence perpetrated against women, we must first interrogate the concept of womanhood. What does it mean to be a woman in America? This question has as complex an answer as the question is simple. “Man” and “woman” constitute what is known as the gender binary, placing “male” and “female” gender identities as opposites. In recent years, there has been a push–academically, socially, politically, etc.–to shift the understanding of gender from a binary male/female to a spectrum covering a range of gender identities. Individuals who identify as “non-binary,” “genderqueer,” “agender,” “bigender,” and others who do not fit the category of “man” or “woman” would be thus recognized (Richards; “Understanding Non-Binary People”). These conceptions of gender identity are still in the process of being accepted by mainstream 1 There is much contemporary discourse about use of the terms “men” and “women” and whether better terms can be utilized to identify these genders. I use the terms in this paper because of they have historically defined how “man” and “woman” are understood in American culture and politics and also because the protagonists of both texts I focus on below, namely Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale and Chanel Miller in Know My Name, have both explicitly been identified as women by the authors. 1 society. Judith Butler, an American scholar, philosopher, and gender theorist, has played an important role in shifting the understanding of gender away from a binary modality. Butler is widely known for her theory of gender performativity which states that gender does not exist beyond the expression of gender. In a 1988 essay entitled “Performative Act and Gender Constitution,” Butler quotes Simone de Beauvoir’s famous line that “one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman,” responding by saying, “in this sense, gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceede [sic]; rather it is an identity tenuously constituted in time—an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts . Further, gender is instituted through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self” (519, emphasis original). Butler further elucidates her theory put forth in this essay in her books Gender Trouble and Undoing Gender . Butler also distinguishes between the conceptions of “sex” and “gender.” Butler interpolates Beauvoir’s claim that “’woman’ is a historical idea and not a natural fact” to underscore “the distinction between sex, as biological facticity, and gender, as the cultural interpretation or signification of that facticity”

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