Confronting the abject: women and dead babies in modern English fiction

Journal article


Minogue, S. and Palmer, A. 2006. Confronting the abject: women and dead babies in modern English fiction. Journal of Modern Literature. 29 (3), pp. 103-125.
AuthorsMinogue, S. and Palmer, A.
Abstract

Jean Rhys and Aldous Huxley were groundbreaking in that they represented the experience of illegal abortion openly with no apparent disapprobation, drawing it to the attention of a significant readership. Their representations – bodily, but grim – resonate with Bakhtin’s argument that modernity can sustain only a denigrated version of the grotesque, a faint echo of the carnivalesque humour of Rabelais, where laughter is superseded by fear (in Kristeva’s term, the abject). Twenty-five years later, Alan Sillitoe and Nell Dunn pushed the limits further, placing abortion at the centre of their novels, forcing the reader to engage with the woman’s experience, while working within a realist tradition that did not spare harsh details. Within this tradition they are nonetheless sometimes playful, even comic, in their language and modes of representation, carrying readers far beyond the stark specifics of realism and outside the reductive restrictions of the polarized abortion debate.

KeywordsJean Rhys; Aldous Huxley; fiction; abject, abortion
Year2006
JournalJournal of Modern Literature
Journal citation29 (3), pp. 103-125
PublisherIndiana University Press
ISSN0022-281X
Official URLhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3831690
Publication dates
Print2006
Publication process dates
Deposited21 Jul 2015
Accepted17 Oct 2005
Output statusPublished
File
Permalink -

https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/8765x/confronting-the-abject-women-and-dead-babies-in-modern-english-fiction

Download files

  • 89
    total views
  • 228
    total downloads
  • 0
    views this month
  • 1
    downloads this month

Export as

Related outputs

Animal Farm
Palmer, A. Palmer, A. (ed.) 2021. Animal Farm. Wordsworth.
“Very slowly into my own tongue”: Virginia Woolf’s rethinking of the politician.
Palmer, A. 2020. “Very slowly into my own tongue”: Virginia Woolf’s rethinking of the politician. in: Virginia Woolf, Europe and Peace: Transnational Circulations. Clemson, South Carolina, USA Clemson University Press. pp. 101-115
Modernism and First World War poetry: alternative lines
Palmer, A. and Minogue, S. 2015. Modernism and First World War poetry: alternative lines. in: Davis, A. and Jenkins, L. (ed.) A History of Modernist Poetry Cambridge Cambridge University Press. pp. 227-251
The remembered dead: poetry, memory and the First World War
Minogue, S. and Palmer, A. 2018. The remembered dead: poetry, memory and the First World War. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
‘“Friend with the musing eye”: persuasion and dissonance in “call to arms” poems of the First World War’
Palmer, A. 2016. ‘“Friend with the musing eye”: persuasion and dissonance in “call to arms” poems of the First World War’. in: Owen, D. and Pividori, C. (ed.) Writings of Persuasion and Dissonance in the Great War: That Better Whiles May Follow Worse. Amsterdam Brill. pp. 138-151
‘“In a land that I love”: working-class identity and the end of empire in Ray Davies’ Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire
Palmer, A. 2013. ‘“In a land that I love”: working-class identity and the end of empire in Ray Davies’ Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. Popular Music & Society. 36 (4). https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2012.753705
Close to home
Shepherdson, K., Ball, R. and Minogue, S. 2013. Close to home. Broadstairs Burton Press.
'Horrors here smile': the poem, the photograph and the punctum
Minogue, S. and Palmer, A. 2013. 'Horrors here smile': the poem, the photograph and the punctum. Word & Image. 29 (2), pp. 203-211. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2012.707004
’In the shade of a ghost gum’: Bruce Chatwin and the rhetoric of the desert
Palmer, A. 2011. ’In the shade of a ghost gum’: Bruce Chatwin and the rhetoric of the desert. English: The Journal of the English Association. 60 (231), pp. 311-335. https://doi.org/10.1093/english/efr033
Memorial poems and the poetics of memorializing
Palmer, A. and Minogue, S. 2010. Memorial poems and the poetics of memorializing. Journal of Modern Literature. 34 (1), pp. 162-181. https://doi.org/10.2979/JML.2010.34.1.162
Wanderers and settlers: Bruce Chatwin and the “Jewish element"
Palmer, A. 1999. Wanderers and settlers: Bruce Chatwin and the “Jewish element". The Jewish Quarterly.
World War One poetry and the demotic
Minogue, S. 1999. World War One poetry and the demotic. Colloquium on Politics and the Vernacular in Modern and Contemporary Poetry.
Displaced poet: location and dislocation in Ivor Gurney’s poetry
Minogue, S. 1999. Displaced poet: location and dislocation in Ivor Gurney’s poetry. The Critical Review. 39, pp. 29-45.
'In the shade of a ghost gum’: Bruce Chatwin and the rhetoric of the desert
Palmer, A. 2008. 'In the shade of a ghost gum’: Bruce Chatwin and the rhetoric of the desert.
George Orwell and British antisemitism
Palmer, A. 1998. George Orwell and British antisemitism. Jewish Quarterly. 172, pp. 41-45.
Living pictures of the dead
Minogue, S. 1998. Living pictures of the dead. PN Review. 24 (4), pp. 31-35.
Was it a vision? Structuring emptiness in 'To the Lighthouse'
Minogue, S. 1998. Was it a vision? Structuring emptiness in 'To the Lighthouse'. Journal of Modern Literature. 21 (2), pp. 281-294.
Isaac, My Brother
Palmer, A. 2001. Isaac, My Brother. The Jewish Quarterly. 184, pp. 7-14.
(Re)-visiting Der Heim: the amazing return to the place you've never been which isn’t there
Palmer, A. 2002. (Re)-visiting Der Heim: the amazing return to the place you've never been which isn’t there. in: Siegel, K. (ed.) Issues in Travel Writing: Empire, Spectacle, and Displacement Peter Lang. pp. 245-251
Helter skelter, topsy-turvy and ‘loonycolour’: carnivalesque realism in 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'
Minogue, S. and Palmer, A. 2002. Helter skelter, topsy-turvy and ‘loonycolour’: carnivalesque realism in 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'. English: The Journal of the English Association. 51, pp. 127-143.
Introduction to Jane Eyre (including bibliography and notes)
Minogue, S. 1999. Introduction to Jane Eyre (including bibliography and notes). in: Jane Eyre Ware Wordsworth.
Introduction to Villette
Minogue, S. 1999. Introduction to Villette. in: Villette Ware Wordsworth.