This thesis investigates testimonies of three female authors from Latin America and the Middle East through scriptotherapy narratives which “give voice to previously repressed memories” (Smith and Watson 29). Through the genre of autobiography, women have an opportunity to showcase acts of resistance towards the inner turmoil of colonial trauma that has been brought upon their existence. The only way that they can create their own identity is through “legending,” a theoretical framework conceptualized by Gilles Deleuze, which does not offer an escape from colonialism but utilizes its power to offer narratives of healing (126). Decoloniality re-integrates the roots of colonial power into re-invigorated narratives that will become lineage. As “scriptotherapy” narratives, these female authors are displaying resistance by circulating their stories to the global public and bringing communities together to understand that it is possible to stop the cycle of trauma and abuse that exists to keep the women of their culture repressed.
I argue that Julia Alvarez and Azar Nafisi’s scriptotherapy narratives encode trauma as acts of resistance in relation to turbulent political situations in their home countries. Julia Alvarez’s Something to Declare: Essays (1998) details her experiences as a Latin American woman who has been displaced, bodily, from the Dominican Republic during its revolutionary period from April to September of 1965. Azar Nafisi’s Things I’ve Been Silent About: Memories of a Prodigal Daughter (2008) paints a historical portrait of her Iranian family life during the Islamic Revolution of 1978–1979 and the toll the colonial powers had on cultivating her journey into womanhood. Adriana Páramo’s My Mother’s Funeral (2013) showcases writing as trauma reintegrated into a narrative in which personal ideologies and native Spanish language construct an intersectional space. Through storytelling, women are advocated for globally and consciously brought into the major Western culture to instigate change.
References
Deleuze, Gilles. Negotiations 1972–1990, translated by Marin Joughin, Columbia UP, 1995, pp. 125–140.
Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, 2nd ed. U of Minnesota P, 2010, pp. ix–xiv, 1–394.
Program of Study:
Master of Arts in English: Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies Track
Educational Career:
Bachelor of Arts in English, 2019, Nova Southeastern University
Committee in Charge:
Chair: Dr. Louise Kane
Dr. Fayesa Hasanat
Dr. François-Xavier Gleyzon
Dr. Yvette Fuentes
Approved for distribution by Dr. Louise Kane, Committee Chair, on March 22nd, 2023.
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