Samarawickrama, Gajasinghe Hewatalagahage Isuru Enakshi
(2023)
An examination of strategies employed by female protagonists to confront victimhood in domestic noir.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham Malaysia.
Abstract
This research examines how the female protagonists of domestic noir shed their victimhood and regain their agency, exploring how the concepts of female victimhood, female violence and female agency are portrayed in domestic noir. As domestic noir is a relatively new subgenre that emerged in 2012, there is still little research to be found, especially in terms of female victimhood and the depiction of femininities and masculinities of its protagonists. This study analyses the heterosexual marriages in three domestic noir novels, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012), The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison (2013) and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (2015), exploring how the four major aspects of inversion of normative feminine and masculine behaviour, gender performance and masquerade, female victimhood and agency, and the relationship between gender and violence are portrayed in these novels. In exploring these aspects, this research aims to identify whether the female protagonists of domestic noir actually subvert patriarchal gender norms and the norms of traditional crime fiction, if they successfully shed their victimhood and whether their victimhood and violence categorise them as heroines, anti-heroines or villainesses.
Drawn from the existing literature on domestic noir and the reading of many domestic noir novels, this study suggests that the female protagonists of domestic noir employ five main strategies when seeking to escape their victimhood and regain their agency: gender performance, masquerade, inversion of normative feminine and masculine behaviour, recognising their victimhood, and violence. This study indicates that the female protagonists enact hegemonic masculinities, thereby threatening their male partners and the patriarchy, and are therefore labelled as pariah femininities, which results in male spousal abuse. To avoid this, the female protagonists engage in gender performances and masquerades of hegemonic femininity/hyperfemininity. However, despite being victims, the female protagonists are often simultaneously perpetrators of violence too. Furthermore, while the female protagonists do not employ the five strategies in a linear manner, they must do so to successfully shed their victimhood and regain their agency, and recognising their victimhood is the most crucial step in this process. Nevertheless, all female protagonists do not successfully shed their victimhood and regain their agency, and of the ones that do, the degree to which they become agentic varies from female protagonist to protagonist.
My research provides a framework to analyse domestic noir novels that focus on heterosexual marriages and romantic relationships, by analysing the inter-connected aspects of femininities and masculinities in domestic noir, the use of gender performance and masquerade, the concepts of female victimhood and agency and the relationship between gender and violence through examining how they employ the five strategies of gender performance, masquerade, inversion of normative feminine and masculine behaviour, recognising their victimhood and violence. While these aspects have been explored in the existing literature, this research provides a more in-depth analysis, by focussing on the intersections between the four major aspects of femininities and masculinities, gender performance, masquerade, female victimhood and agency, and violence in domestic noir.
| Item Type: |
Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
(PhD)
|
| Supervisors: |
Vethamani, Malachi Edwin
Sivagurunathan, Shivani |
| Keywords: |
femininities; masculinities; female victimhood; female villainy; violence; gender performance; gender performativity; womanliness as a masquerade |
| Subjects: |
P Language and literature > PE English |
| Faculties/Schools: |
University of Nottingham, Malaysia > Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences > School of English |
| Item ID: |
72911 |
| Depositing User: |
Samarawickrama, Gajasinghe
|
| Date Deposited: |
23 Jul 2023 04:40 |
| Last Modified: |
23 Jul 2023 04:40 |
| URI: |
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/72911 |
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