Affect, Embodiment, and Ethics in Narratives of Sexual Abuse

Affect, Embodiment, and Ethics in Narratives of Sexual Abuse Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Lindsay A. Martin, M.A. Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2016 Dissertation Committee: James Phelan, Advisor Robyn Warhol, Co-Advisor Brian McHale Copyright by Lindsay A. Martin 2016 Abstract In the field of rhetorical narrative theory, the study of affect has been oft- acknowledged but remains undervalued. Even as affect studies has burgeoned in other fields, affect in narrative theory continues to be discussed either as a product of ethical judgments or as a purely physical response that scientific studies can measure. Affect, Embodiment, and Ethics in Narratives of Sexual Abuse expands the vocabulary for affect in narrative theory, in particular focusing on expanding our awareness of the varying potential relationships between ethical judgments and affective dynamics. Turning to narratives that represent sexual abuse and taboo violation in late-twentieth-century American literature—Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Kathryn Harrison’s memoir The Kiss, and Alexander Chee’s Edinburgh—I demonstrate that affective dynamics have a variety of possible relationships with the negative ethical judgments encouraged against the abuser figures and/or taboo violators. Specifically, I argue that in order to attend to affect as it appears in narratives of sexual abuse, we must attend to “embodiment”: the character’s shifting experiences of how closely tied he or she feels mind and body to be. I call this experiential embodiment and chart it by examining representation of characters’ emotions, trauma, and bodily experience. In Chee’s Edinburgh, Fee’s paradoxically embodied desire to transcend the body, as a result of his trauma, is a central instability that must be resolved through ii resolving his aesthetic and sexual identities. Fee’s embodied experiences encourage similar readerly feelings and ultimately revise the frameworks for ethically judging the abuser figure. That is, whereas Big Eric receives harsh, black-and-white judgments, Fee’s progression leads to a revised, more nuanced and understanding approach that resists similar judgments when he, as an adult, has sex with a teenage student. In Harrison’s The Kiss, I examine the representation of affectless prose to demonstrate that the memoir’s submerging of excessive trauma and deep feelings itself constitutes the ethical injunction to witness the author’s and narrator’s traumatic history. This witnessing, however, does not lead to simple identification, in that the narrative refuses access to some of the deepest levels of affect the narration only hints at. Moreover, I argue that the memoir’s affectless prose and request to witness is a more successful representation of affect than the recovery model it shifts into for the resolution. Turning last to Lolita, I demonstrate another relationship between affect and ethics, this time in a close attention to individual, isolated moments in the narrative. In moments of lyrical address, Lolita offers the opportunity for potential identification with Humbert and a setting aside of the negative ethical judgments that are emphasized elsewhere. Moreover, these moments can provide a temporary reprieve from reminders of Humbert Humbert’s unreliability—and thus from the need for readerly suspicion and judgment. iii Acknowledgments This dissertation would not be possible without the commitment, assistance, and belief—indeed, might I say, the emotional and affective support—from so many I’ve encountered over the years since my education in literary studies began. First and foremost, I thank my committee members: James Phelan, Robyn Warhol, and Brian McHale. Jim Phelan has demonstrated time and again, by pushing me to clarify my thoughts and pressing on my interpretations, that he believes in the potential of my work, and he has unfailingly supported me in my endeavors, both within and out of academia, acting as mentor above and beyond what one might expect of an advisor. The monthly potlucks Jim hosted, where post-candidacy advisees could discuss their work, was invaluable as I sorted out my ideas and the overall structure of this dissertation. For all of the above, I am deeply grateful. Robyn Warhol was integral to the development of my thinking over the years; indeed, I might say that she helped me see (finally, belatedly) what a feminist narrative theorist identity—and a feminist identity more broadly—can look like. For her unfailing support in arenas both academic and personal, I cannot offer sufficient thanks. Brian McHale has likewise offered invaluable feedback through this dissertation process and has always pressed me to be a clearer, sharper writer and better thinker. iv I also could not have completed this dissertation with the encouragement, help, and constant emotional support of numerous friends and colleagues. To Anne Langendorfer, Sarah Copland, Matthew Bolton, Rebecca Fox-Gieg, Lauren Ressue, Elizabeth Nixon, Tara Cyphers, and many others: I am so grateful. Anne Langendorfer and Sarah Copland have read and commented on more drafts than I can count by this point. Others have cheerleaded. Still others have conversed about ideas and plans as I sorted through the many potential directions this project could have taken. Finally, I could not end an acknowledgments section without going further back in time to the years at Hamilton College that first made graduate school seem possible. To my mentors at Hamilton, who continue to care and converse and to be in my thoughts: Peter J. Rabinowitz, John O’Neill, Sharon Williams, Katherine Kodat, Robert Martin, and Jennifer Irons: You made this path possible for me and opened up a world of thinking and learning I could not have fathomed before college. I am so grateful, every day, for what my experience at Hamilton offered; I see this moment as a direct result of attending. v Vita 2007........................................B.A., English, Hamilton College 2009........................................M.A., English, The Ohio State University 2008–2009; 2011–2012 .........Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University 2007–2008, 2012–2013..........Distinguished University Fellowship, The Ohio State University 2010–2011..............................Writing Tutor, The Ohio State University Writing Center 2013 to Present .......................Acquisitions Editor, The Ohio State University Press Field of Study Major Field: English vi Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. iv Vita ..................................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Embodiment and Mind-Body Integration in Chee’s Edinburgh ..................... 58 Chapter 3: Affective Witnessing in Harrison’s The Kiss ................................................ 102 Chapter 4: Lyrical Address, Identification, and the Moment in Lolita ........................... 155 Coda: What Readers Bring to a Narrative ...................................................................... 203 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 217 vii Chapter 1: Introduction Teachers of literary narratives that lead to hotly contested—sometimes even intensely personal—debates know that narratives evoke reader emotions. Instructors who assign narratives about taboo situations like Nabokov’s Lolita with its representation of pedophilia, Brokeback Mountain (the film or the story by Proulx) with its graphic representation of sex between men, and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things with its representation of incestuous desire, typically encounter a stream of judgments about characters, undergirded by intense emotional responses to those characters’ actions. Some instructors believe that such judgments and emotional reactions should be avoided, while some embrace such reactions as a useful starting-point in the classroom,1 but all, I hope, can acknowledge the power that narratives have to elicit both strong ethical judgments and emotional reactions. We feel in response to the things we read, and we often have 1 This brings up questions about the recent debates about the place of trigger warnings in the classroom—a phenomenon that only highlights my point about the difficulty of some texts. This conversation is widely varied and seems to slide quickly between the idea that trigger warnings should be, on the one hand, just that—warnings intended to prepare students to encounter difficult material—and on the other hand, an opportunity for the student to excuse him or herself from encountering the difficult material. Given my interest in the ultimate value of encountering difficult material, I would not promote such a view, though I could understand the need for individual students to sit out of a class- wide discussion, when things get heated, often angry, and visceral, in the way I’ve described. 1 strong opinions about the rightness or wrongness of either characters’

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