Abstract
Using a feminist lens in
application to the poetry in Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur and music by
Lorde in her second album, Melodrama, victim narratives are examined in
the way that they can be created and shared as an art form stemming from an
almost dreamlike place, with the art that is created representing an
interpretation of their own realities within trauma, and how the acceptance or
critique of this art by masculine and hegemonic power systems affects tensions
in the female experience between inner and outer solipsism that is necessary
for survival in a capitalist system, and victimization that distorts the
woman’s place of power within her own narrative. There is a feeling of myth vs.
history in relation to the systematic trivialization of female experience
and voice in relation to victim narratives, which is being taken one step
further with the work of female artists. This eventually leads to what is known
as victim-blaming, slut-shaming, rape culture, trivialization of violence and
abuse, creating standards for what can count as trauma, assault, rape,
oppression, etc. In this thesis I will also be examining themes of
millenial feminism, self-love as rebellion, Marxism, personal and collective
identity to inner and outer places, which is very Homi Bhabha-esque, to examine
this ability for women to capitalize on trauma and what this means culturally.
These themes are able to be examined and analyzed in the visual and verse/lyric
elements of Milk and Honey and Melodrama.
Introduction
So, let us start with Bhabha.
Homi Bhabha infamously writes of the idea of the ‘third space’ in relation to
identity and culture, which will be shifted into the idea of inner and outer
space in this analysis, to give more of a framework to this idea of
capitalistic solipsism, and how women are simultaneously forced and choose to
utilize this to create art that has theme of trauma and can act as a victim
narrative. The focus on these elements at all shows that there are still gaps
in the validity that we assign to women and their stories. More recent examples
of this can be seen with the artists I have chosen for this analysis. But this
language of assigning value, which is very much a Marxist way of examining a
set of theory, to women and what they provide verbally, mentally,
emotionally and physically into the society in which they exist is in itself an
act of domination. As humans, we like to assign value in order to understand
what we are perceiving, but the value that we place on victim narratives is not
an organic assignment, but one that stems from patriarchal and hegemonic
structures and discourses. The value in reality, which is different for
everyone based on a variety of contingent elements birthed and rebuked by
society, should be placed by the victims and the creators of victim narratives
themselves. It is disheartening that this must be a point that is argued for.
Method
There is still an
overwhelming tendency by hegemonic and patriarchal systems to remove or
trivialize the female voice in the space of victim narratives, specifically in
the form of sharing these narratives in art forms. This does not only happen
with the means of reaching an end of religious, political, or legal control to
maintain the comfort that comes with masculine privilege on an interpersonal,
national, or global scale, but also in the way that we critique and perceive
art forms such as poetry and music. Exploration of this trivialization and
silencing of the female voice, that then goes on to distort the feale memory
and experience as a victim, is necessary to examine in all realms, on all
levels. Examining a victim who is also a creator of such art is naturally a
more massive scale of this epidemic. One does not have to look very far to see
where this has happened in similar ways before. In the music industry with the
abuse and assault that Rihanna experienced due to partner at the time Chris
Brown and most recently, the multiple actresses that have come forward with
allegations against Harry Weinstein. All of these women are creators of
different art forms and have spoken out about their own victimization to create
a victim narrative in this way, without necessarily naming their work
specifically as a victim narrative. By examining both artists that create
poetry and music, there is a commonality of these women being writers, but
there is also the difference of pop culture influence they both are able to
have based upon what they write. This allows different angles and levels of
examination of the constructs and systems that critique and oppress their
voices and creation in relation to their victim narratives. To get a good idea
of what this oppression looks like and what must be fought for to even release
this narrative into the world of performance, the examination of the inner and
outer self, how the victim narrative can be seen as a dream interpretation
based on the fact that reality for those who have experienced trauma can be
dissociated, the myth vs. history of discourse around the victim narrative and
how this relates to female memory and identity, the position of the creator and
the critiquer, modes of performance, influences of solipsism, and silence and
voice in the construct of being both a victim and a hero of one’s own
narrative.
I have chosen to examine Milk
and Honey by Rupi Kaur and the Melodrama album by Lorde, for I
believe they are most recognizable as victim narratives when being examined for
such a purpose. This selection is pleasing in the span of time that these women
have created from, and from what realm they create, both in music and poetry,
which shows transferability of the hegemonic and patriarchal epidemic that is
inflicted on victim narratives. I came to this topic more or less through
interest and a process of elimination. I was interested in this idea of
virginity and how this is caught in the push and pull of society, and this idea
became more specific in the role of victim narratives. As a millennial aged
woman, feminist, someone who has their own victim narrative, and has created
with this narrative, I wanted to explore others like myself in this idea of art
creation and capitalizing on horridness, and the where, why, and how this comes
about. This is how we end up with Lorde and Kaur. I first wanted to examine
social media response to these women and the work the create, but based on the
advice given after my final presentation by Dr. Vrooman, I am going to work
mostly with theory around the idea of solipsistic capitalism. As a woman who is
creating based on a victim narrative in a society that constantly wants to
trivialize her voice and experience, especially if one wants to capitalize and
create with this narrative, women are almost forced to be solipsists.
Data
I.Tension: First Pull
A.
Victim Narratives, Art, and the Female Memory
Victim narratives
have an interesting function for women in society, not only for the backlash
and trivialization that they are met with, but how many forms of confession one
is expressing in the moment of creating and sharing this narrative on a larger platform
in the way of being an artist. The female voice is one that is still not fully
listened to or heard, and when this voice is used to speak to the truth of a
victim narrative, this is no different. When one confesses to being a victim of
trauma due to assault, abuse, or harassment, then is an immediate collateral
connection to what this means in regards to being a “good”, “normal”, or “true”
woman. If you have been assaulted, you are no longer “pure”. Cue victim
blaming, question, and the virgin-whore dichotomy that often stems from
religious beliefs and discourses. This must be rebuked all the while in an
attempt as a victim to make sense of what has been experienced, which come in
both pure and dissociative waves. This is used to exemplify the extreme
strength victims must acquire to not only work through how they feel due to the
trauma, but understanding this emotion in the wake of being questioned and
trivialized, especially when this recognition of victimization is placed on a
larger artistic scale of poetry or music as we see with Rupi Kaur and Lorde’s
work as female artists; who all create their own form of what can be termed as
a victim narrative. It is problematic to attempt to define a victim narrative,
for one must then attempt to define the term ‘victim’, ‘trauma’, and
‘narrative’, which exudes feelings of dominance and control over those who have
been victimized. This issue is recognized in works that explore the topic of
victimization and the narratives of such, for there is a concern with inclusion
and validation of those who participate in them.
What is allowed to be trauma
and a narrative by social and cultural standards goes on to affect the female
memory of this trauma both individually and collectively. This idea of female
memory goes on to relate to what we know as dreams. When a victim’s reality
begins to become distorted not only due to the fallout of trauma, but due to
the implications that societal standards have on a victim's recollection of the
trauma, whether they choose to vocalize this or not, can make their reality
become dissociative or dream-like. Gaps may be filled in, glossed over, or
blocked off completely. This is internal sense of order and control, much
like Kant’s “moral order within”, which can be juxtaposed with a sociological
order ‘without’ (Hilbert, The Anomalous Foundations of Dream Telling:
Objective Solipsism and the Problem of Meaning). This article talks heavily
about the reality and fantasy of dreams, the symbolic content of such, the
active connection between the dreamer and the receptive audience of when this
dream is told, and how dreams are solipsistic in nature due to how reality
within the dream is purely individual to the dreamer, for they are the only one
who has access to such information. I would like to suggest that this can be
transferred over directly to victim narratives as the dreams, the storytelling
of these dreams as performance of these narratives in poetry and music, on the
solipsistic basis that this is the simultaneous reality and dream that the
victim has come to understand, and therefore wants to share with the public.
The natural response to such theorizing is spoken to early on by Hilbert, for
what it ultimately comes down to is ‘truth’ that is desired to be made into
‘Truth’ on the basis of patriarchal and hegemonic power systems. “How is it
possible that, for dreamers and audiences alike, narratives can be told by
solitary individuals as accurate and trustworthy representations of dreams
which attendant social discourse is “about” and upon which attendant discourse
depends? How is the “whatever” that which is subjected to competing versions of
what the “whatever” might signify or represent, or how one should understand
the “whatever”, or what one should do with it, or how one should study
it--constituted in the first place,” (Hilbert, The Anomalous Foundations of
Dream Telling: Objective Solipsism and the Problem of Meaning). The female
voice that narrates and creates narratives from a place of victimization is
still being questioned and trivialized by a group of people in power who do not
have the ability to place themselves in female position in a society that is
inherently sexist, misogynists, and abusive to women. Hilbert advocates for the
validation of the ‘Truth” that dreamers tell, and I like to think that I am
doing the same.
Victim narratives
can take on many forms, but what is of most interest in this analysis is how it
can take on an art form, and how this art form can be seen as an interpretation
of a dream due to how society so often changes and distorts the female reality
and memory, specifically in relation to victimization and how this dream
projection is a way of trying to change these norms while simultaneously to
heal through trauma and pain.
A point that I
grapple with, but also want to make clear is how we are supposed to treat
victim narratives with the historical knowledge of the trivialization of the
female voice. Whether it is right or wrong for women to capitalize on their
trauma is not necessarily the point, but rather the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ this
happens, and what this means for our society as a whole. If I must judge on the
morality of this form of capitalization, I would question that is that in
itself a trivialization of the female voice? Not that we are unable to be
critical of the art created by women, but are we able to critique a victim
narrative inspired piece of art, for is this not adding to the victim blaming,
slut-shaming, ignoring of female voice and pain, generalization of women,
swirling conglomerate mess of masculine hegemony? This is potentially the
question of all of this because if victim narratives are something that can be
commodified and capitalized upon, as is the female right, I think, if they so
choose (but then we run into the argument of choice and no choice), then this
means that this commodity with an assigned value is able to be critiqued by the
mass public. In doing so, there is a good chance that the problematic histories
and norms of placing the wrong value on victim narratives by trivializing or
stifling them may happen, based upon the history of the patriarchal system and
masculine hegemony to not listen to the female voice or experience unless it
serves a purpose to them specifically. Victim narratives do not help these
systems in any way, so positive response or helpful critique are not
necessarily in the first line of response when these narratives rise to the
surface, especially in larger art forms such as this. One could potentially go
so far to ask if all art, of any form, is in some way partially a victim
narrative, whether intentional or not, for the female experience is still one
of a variance of oppressed positions to the point that daily tasks such as
walking down the street or the shirt that a woman chooses to wear is analyzed
from a masculine hegemonic lens of privilege. There is a certain value that is
attached to the female voice because of this historical position of being
second class that women have.
- Inner and Outer Places Relating to Identity,
Individualism, and Solipsism
One of the larger
themes that has been noteworthy among research thus far is the moment of
tension and separation between inner and outer places in the way of how a
victim may understand the trauma they have experienced within themselves, how
the outer places, being society, may understand this trauma, and how this clash
can affect how one sees and accepts trauma realities in relation to female
memory, identity as a victim, survivor, and woman, and how there may be a
solipsistic cling to the reality within due to the tendency of the outer places
to offer validation to victims and their narratives. In a grand view of
feminist poetry as a movement throughout each feminist wave, there is a
progression to the linking of poetry with politics as far as purpose and
content. “The rise of the “new feminism” of the late sixties and early
seventies occasioned poetic as well as political action, and, more importantly,
the understanding that these were not separate endeavors. Poetry by feminists
has been a powerful and essential articulation of female consciousness and
concerns,” (Juhasz, Transformations in Feminist Poetry). The problem, is
how this female consciousness can become distorted on the collective basis of
hegemonic and masculine influence. This leads to the need of what Adrienne Rich
calls “Breaking down the barrier between private and public”, or in this
context, the inner and outer self or “Personal and collective identity merge in
“the cratered night of female memory””, (Juhasz, Transformations in Feminist
Poetry). Feminist poetry has a strong pattern of being concerned with
‘truth’ and ‘Truth’ and how individual and cultural truths collide and repel;
this is where the politics come in. Jennifer Ashton makes the point in her
article Our Bodies, Our Poems that poets can produce a part of
themselves into their work. “And the recent reintegration of lyric into the
study of “innovative” women’s poetry should come as no surprise, for there is
an obvious way in which the innovation of form, reimagined as a production from
the poet’s body, becomes the most literal variant of the self-expression that
has been, for the last two centuries or so anyway, the hallmark of lyric,”
(Ashton, Our Bodies, Our Poems). There is a unifying point of lyrical
and poetical writing and expression.
Juhasz references
Audre Lorde’s explanation of “places of possibility” where “we have knowledge
and power that we have yet to use because they are unverbalized”, which can be
viewed as “deep places” “because they are ancient and hidden; they have
survived and grown strong through darkness”, which mirrors the creative process
of bringing these dreams and victim narratives to the surface in the form of
poetry or music (Juhasz, Transformations in Feminist Poetry). There is a
chance to explore these places through poetry, as well as music, for both are a
written creative process that depend heavily on emotion that must be turned
into understandable language. There is a potential justification for solipsism
and individualism, which are most often not viewed as the most common if traits
or states of being, for victims must do exist within this for survival. In a
society that tries to take your trauma, abuse, assault, and rape from you to
then turn it into something else that is more conducive for the larger cultural
and patriarchal narrative, a victim must live within themselves to find the
true reality of their trauma, which in itself is not dependent due to
dissociative tendencies the brain has to lower pain, PTSD flashbacks, and to
increase chances of survival. This justification is seen in Hilbert’s work. He
suggests that objective solipsism as a possibility to “impose order on an
accountability senseless scene”, which is problematic in the way of discourse
for it can suggest that these “scene” which are dreams or victims narratives
are senseless and therefore not to be believed (Hilbert, The Anomalous
Foundations of Dream Telling).
While on the
topic of “places”. Lorde’s song “Perfect Places” explores this idea of
in betweenness and reality that simultaneously exists and doesn’t. “All of the
things we're taking/'Cause we are young and we're ashamed/Send us to perfect
places/All of our heroes fading/Now I can't stand to be alone/Let's go to
perfect places.” She is searching for a space to exist in that is both an
escape and a reality. I think that this can transfer over into how women have
to search to find a place where their voice and experience will be justified.
That is the perfect place. In the song “Greenlight”, the lyrics “I know about
what you did and I wanna scream the truth/She thinks you love the beach, you're
such a damn liar” show Lorde’s truth, her own truth, that is coming out in what
she is creating, and she is not going to stifle that down in the face of
society. In the lyrics “Did it frighten you/How we kissed when we danced on the
light up floor?”, we can see how this idea of female sexuality and freedom is
often viewed as confusing, wrong, or repelling. This is almost showcasing the
virgin-whore construct that is applied when men feel a lack of control over a
woman. In the song “Writer in the Dark”, the lyrics “To be a good man for
someone else/Sorry I was never good like you/Stood on my chest and kept me
down/Hated hearing my name on the lips of a crowd/Did my best to exist just for
you” shows this idea of the “good guy” construct, which shows the male
hegemonic power that is present in relationships and how this can affect female
identity. The lyrics “Now she’s gonna play and sing and lock you in her heart”
shows how Lorde plans to capitalize on this trauma by turning her dream
sequence and victim narrative into an art form in order to help heal. “I am my
mother’s child, I’ll love you til’ my breathing stops” shows this connectivity
in female generations that connects not only experience, but voice too. “I’ll
find a way be be without you, babe” represents liberation in self and identity
as a woman, artist, and survivor. The theme of independence and self-love/care
as rebellion is present in this too.
Analyzing Kaur’s
poetry brings up similar themes as well. The poem “-if you want to know what
the type of man he is” (her text is mostly stripped of capitalization and
punctuation, and if she titles her poem, she signs them like that, almost like
a letter) is pointing
out patterns of toxic masculinity and the romanticizing of such, misogyny,
sexism, and hegemonic influence/power.
“if he can't help but
degrade other women
when they're not looking
if toxicity is central to his language
he could hold you
in his lap and be soft
honey
that man could feed you sugar and
douse you in rose water
but that still could not
make him sweet”
She is alluding to the “good guy” construct”. The “sweetness” that
we as a society have romanticized does not make that person good. In the poem “Our
backs/tell stories/no books have
/the spine to/carry” and “we all move forward when/we recognize how resilient/and
striking the women/around us are” shows this theme of millenial feminism and
the fight against racism and sexism. Our resilience is cultivated in self and
each other. The art present on these pages show diversity in being female as
well.
Audre Lorde describes the
female position of power as “The woman’s place of power within each of us is
neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep,” (Juhasz,
Transformations in Feminist Poetry). The description of this place of
power with the terms of both “light” and “dark” give the feeling of it being
more artistic in nature by utilizing shade or color language. This leads to the
visual part of this analysis. When thinking of victim narratives as dreams,
some people dream in color and some dream in black in white, which represents
the difference tone that Lorde and Rupi both take in their work. In Lorde’s
stage lighting, the lighting itself, and in the media used around the album,
there is huge doses of color and fluorescence, used liberally and erotically,
to portray emotion and a visual representation of what Lorde thinks about what
she is creating. Kaur sticks to the theme of black and white, from the cover,
to the poems, and the media surrounding this as well. He focus is purely on the
color or lack thereof that her words make you feel, with the minimalism in
color being the framework for that. The two women share a commonality in the
way that they both utilize simplistic, free-lined, hand-drawing-esque art in
what they create. It looks like it could have been pulled from a journal or
scribbled on a napkin. This heightens the feeling of closeness and organic
creation.
Victims must create their own
place of power amongst systems and discourses that are not conducive to their
validation. This can cause a distortion in identity. In Juhasz article, there
is a moment in her language that can add to this distortion due to invalidation
of the female voice that is present in poetry that speaks to bringing states of
consciousness into being. “These poems that enter the space of the mind, that
try to describe states of consciousness felt more than explained, often use
dreams and other specifically nonrational situations as ways of reaching an
understanding, and a rendering, of mental experience,” (Juhasz, Transformations
in Feminist Poetry). By calling them “non rational situations”, regardless
of authorial intent, this gives the feeling invalidation to what is being
written about and told, for it is stemming from a place that is not rational,
and therefore not believable. While the creative process is not the most
rational one in the way of generalized definition, it is not necessarily something
to be trivialized.
Art for healing’s sake. While
there is capitalistic gain that is happening and should be recognized for all
artists when they release their creation into the world for audience
consumption, this is not the only motivation behind this creation. This is
where the divides between artistic solipsism and performing solipsism.
- Modes of Performance
There is an interesting
connection between the artwork that is present in both Milk and Honey by
Rupi Kaur and the minimalistic hand drawn artwork that is interspersed among
the poems, and Lorde’s lighting setup for the Melodrama album tour that
is inspired by minimal and romantic pieces that are meant to feel like hand
drawn journal entries that are created by Lorde herself. It has this feeling of
creating your own outer place of reality from the perception of one’s
inner place of reality. This seems to be a more physical portrayal of the
dream-like quality of victim narratives.
Milk and Honey
is broken down into four sections of “the hurting”, “the loving”, “the
breaking”, and “the healing”. There seems to be a correlation between this to
Kosenko and Laboy’s explanation of different forms of survival narratives
(Kosenko and Laboy, “I Survived”: The Content and Forms of Survival
Narratives) . These narratives can include optimism and growth,
grief and loss, providence, self-reliance, and justice. These themes are
present in both the poetry of Plath and Kaur, as well as the lyrical poetry of
Lorde. For the sake of time, I won't go into detail, but these themes can in
the future be applied to each song or poem to show each.
- “Good Guy” Construct
The “good guy
construct stems from both patriarchal hegemony and intellectual and progressive
men who may give off the perception of being “good” in their support of the
female voice, experience, and the narratives that are given, until they show
their ingrained toxic masculinity and patriarchal influences in their way of
speaking and being. Lorde references this idea of the “good guy” in her song Writer
in the Dark, as mentioned before, with the lyric “Break the
news, you're walking out; To be a good man for someone else; Sorry I was never
good like you; Stood on my chest and kept me down; Hated hearing my name on the
lips of a crowd; Did my best to exist just for you” as an example of this
construct. I think that this transfers over into this pattern of fake goodness
and helpfulness in connection with capitalism and the response that victim
narratives so often get.
II. Tension: Strain
A.
Myth vs. History; Creator and Critique
The myth aspect
of this dichotomy is represented by the mythical feeling that trauma may have
due to dissociation and distortion that is inspired by social biases and
civilizations regarding victims. Femaleness and femininity has historically
been associated with nature, specifically in poetry. As storytellers of dreams
and victim narratives, women must play a role of “reclaiming woman’s mythic
(and traditional) association with Nature, that role woman was forced to play
to man’s Culture--her primitive, savage, childish Other to his Human--by
investing it with language, hence power,” (Juhasz, Transformations in
Feminist Poetry). Through creation, women are in an active role of taking
back their voice from those who have inflicted the trauma, to not only change
the course of their own history, but the course of the greater history for
women in general. This leads to the idea of construction of history through
poetry to unravel toxic myth that can be seen in Juhasz’s work. Comparing and
relating this to Hilbert’s suggestion that dream narratives are often compared
to cultural mythologies, one can then place this in the form of victim
narratives and hegemonic control and patriarchal myth to then see how this all
meshes and transfers over into one another. One is an exemplifier of the other.
- Victim vs. Heroes; Silence and Voice
If we view these
female artists as the heroes of their story and of their individual identity,
we can see them progress through the toxicity to reach a platform to which we
can then share and experience as an audience. There is a certain level of both
silence and voice that must be and should be obtained to be both a victim and a
hero. There is a level of performance that is expected to being a victim, but
this is another analysis altogether. In Milk and Honey and in Melodrama,
we see these women calling their voices forward and refusing to be silent
after battling through periods of silence where they felt their voices were
stifled.
Conclusion
I know this is merely a
proposal, which is why each point I made is so briefly discussed, for I am
already at almost 20 pages and I could make a paper out of one of these points
alone, but I feel like I have to explain all of this theory way too much to
even begin talking about it. As far as enhancing this project in transferring
over into next semester I need to figure out how to make this idea of solipsism
and capitalism more relevant to the victim narrative as art. I have about half
of a thesis statement created, but I am still trying to find the other half to
all of this to answer the “what is the point” question that has to be asked
when presenting any information at all, especially if it is heavily set in
theory and proposition. This is not much of a conclusion, but I know that this
matters, just not in the specific way that this all matters. I know that
everything feels like it is overlapping and that my organization is very
confusing, but to me, my argument does not yet feel concise enough, so I think
this is why that is happening. In regards to my powerpoint for this project, I
have given Dr. Vrooman access to the document on GoogleDrive. The imagery of
what I have described is in presentation form there.
