Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Child abuse, fiction'

Child abuse began to emerge as a central topic depicted in Western children’s and teenage realist fiction from around the 1990s, peaking in prevalence around the turn of the century and into the early years of the twenty-first century. In this thesis I explore the formal expression of abuse and trauma in a corpus of twenty French texts published between 1992 and 2008 for young-adolescent readers aged between 10 and 16 years. The project begins with a Propp-inspired structural model of child-abuse plot features and characters, which identifies a set cast of protagonists across the corpus which serve a specific functional role in the narrative. I then focus on the three main narratological categories of voice, mood and time, using Genette’s Discours du récit as a framework for a close reading of the abuse texts, whilst also drawing upon various trauma theorists, to explore how choice of narrator, focalizing character and temporal perspectives are manipulated to express different aspects of and perspectives on abuse and the psychological impact of abuse in particular. The final chapter is an analysis of the means used by both protagonists within the texts, and the authors of the texts, to communicate and express abuse and trauma on a personal level, to other characters, and to readers. By drawing upon structural and narratological studies as well as trauma theory in my analysis, I show that form and content are inextricably linked across the corpus. Indeed, the protagonists’ traumatic memories and painful experiences are expressed both on a diegetic level via the characters, and also reflected in the formal and structural features of the texts.

Master of Arts<br>Department of Communications Studies<br>Sarah E. Riforgiate<br>At 47 years old, Lori is a high-functioning businesswoman, matriarch, and contributing member of society. Lori is also diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). From age 3, Lori was violently raped and assaulted by several perpetrators, yet views her multiple personalities as strength, as survival mechanisms, and wants to share her story to help prevent child sexual abuse. Utilizing methods drawn from communication studies, ethnodrama, and autoethnography, this study aims to tell a person’s story in her own words and in a format that can easily be shared with both academic and non-academic audiences. Lori’s story is woven together as an ethnodramatic play that includes original interview transcripts along with an autoethnographic monologue describing the experience of writing someone’s truth when it challenges the hegemonic views of society, and instead embraces the feminist ideals of equality and deconstruction of power. Academic research needs to reach further than academic journals to make a true impact. Through the non-conventional venues of autoethnography and ethnodrama, we can breathe life into our research and provide accessibility to innovative information for those who may need it most.

Written within an existentialist mode, Nakamura Fuminori’s early fictional works lend themselves to be read as therapeutic technologies reaching out to Japanese youth whose lives are marked by anxiety, isolation, and precariousness. Because English-language scholarship on Nakamura is lacking, this thesis analyzes two of his novels – Child of Dirt and Evil and the Mask – in order to introduce how Nakamura understands the human, how his texts function formally as therapeutic technologies, and how, in the final analysis, they exhibit a nascent sexism that borders on misogyny.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study explores representations of troubled childhoods in post-1990 African narratives. Defining troubled childhoods as the experiences of children exposed to different forms of violations including physical, psychological, sexual and emotional abuse, the study reflects on depictions of such experiences in a selection of contemporary African fictional texts in English. The study‘s central thesis is that, while particular authors‘ deployment of affective writing techniques offers implicit analysis of troubled childhoods, the knowledge about this reality that such literary texts produce and place in the public sphere resonates with readers because of the narrative textures that both make knowledge concerning such childhoods accessible and create a sense of the urgent plight of such children. They render troubled childhoods grieveable. The study delineates three attributes of the selected texts that explain why such fictions can be considered significant from both social and aesthetic perspectives: namely, their foregrounding of intertwined vectors of violation and/or vulnerability; their skilful use of multi-layered narrative voices and their creation of specific posttraumatic damage and survival tropes. The four main thesis chapters are organised thematically rather than conceptually or theoretically, because representations of troubled childhoods are contextually and experientially entangled. Using Maria Pia Lara‘s notion of ―illocutionary force‖ and specific aspects of trauma and affect theory, the study focuses centrally on how the units of narration construct persuasive and convincing depictions of troubled childhoods while using fiction to convene platforms for reflection on the phenomena of child victims of war violence, abusive parenting, sexual predation and sexual violation.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie ondersoek voorstellings van gekwelde kinder-ervaringswêrelde in post-1990 narratiewe deur skrywers van Afrika. Gekwelde kinder-ervaringswêrelde word gedefinieer as die ondervindinge van kinders wat blootgestel is aan verskillende vorms van skending, insluitend fisiese, psigologiese, seksuele en emosionele skending. Met hierdie definisie in gedagte reflekteer die studie op gelselekteerde uitbeeldings van sulke ervarings in hedendaagse Afrika-fiksie in Engels. Die studie se sentrale tesis is dat, terwyl sekere outeurs se ontplooiïng van affektiewe skryftegnieke implisiete analise van gekwelde kinder-ervaringswêrelde bied, resoneer die kennis oor hierdie realiteit wat sulke literêre tekste oplewer en in die publieke sfeer plaas met die leespubliek omdat die struktuur van die narratiewe die verskynsel van kwellende kinder-ervarings onthul en bewustheid van die dringende aard van die verskynsel bemoontlik. Sulke kinderlewens word op hierdie manier treurbaar [grievable] gemaak. Die studie delinieer drie eienskappe van die gekose tekste wat verduidelik waarom hierdie tekste vanuit beide sosiale en estetiese perspektiewe as beduidend beskou kan word, naamlik die verstrengelde vektors van verkragting en kwesbaarheid wat hulle op die voorgrond bring, hul bekwame gebruik van veellagige narratiewe stemme en hul skepping van spesifieke posttraumatiese skade- en oorlewingstrope. Die vier middelste tesis-hoofstukke is tematies in plaas van konsepsueel of teoreties georganiseer, omdat voorstellings van gekwelde kinder-ervaringswêrelde kontekstueel- en ervaringsverstrik is. Met die gebruik van Maria Pia Lara se begrip van illocutionary force en spesifieke aspekte van trauma- en inwerkingsteorie fokus die studie hoofsaaklik op hoe die narratiewe eenhede oorhalende en oortuigende afbeeldings van gekwelde kinder-ervaringswêrelde konstrueer terwyl hulle fiksie gebruik om platforms vir refleksie op die fenomeen van kinderslagoffers van oorlogsgeweld, misbruikende ouerskap en seksuele- predasie en verkragting byeen te bring.

Magister Educationis - MEd<br>An important aspect of my thesis is the discussion of the various narrators in the novel; Vladimir Nabokov, John Ray Jnr. and Humbert Humbert. The novel, or Humbert’s memoirs, is only published after Lolita has died in order to preserve her dignity. John Ray Jnr. is the psychologist who is charged with editing Humbert's memoirs to ensure that no lewd details are published. This brings problems of their own, as we find that John Ray Jnr. has clear moral perceptions of Humbert as a person. This effectively creates a fiction within a fiction, which is already set in the fictitious genre of the novel. Vladimir Nabokov arguably informs the novel with his own ethics and ethos. This interrogates the reliability of the narrators and calls into question the truth-value of fiction and the inappropriateness of the law to ban fiction that discusses taboo issues. The main aim of my thesis is to discredit Humbert as a reliable narrator and character by analysing the taboo issues of paedophilia, incest, rape and murder. This will be done in order to show how Nabokov proposes alternative morals by deconstructing traditional morality using taboo topics in fiction

This research project asserts the primacy of creative practice as a key method of enquiry and explores how fictional stories, re-imagined from historical events of the mid-twentieth century, may provide different ways of viewing a world which was inhabited by once-silenced children, now known as the ‘forgotten Australians’. To this end, the thesis is made up of a creative component in the form of a book-length collection of short fiction that is accompanied by a critical component positioning the thesis contextually, theoretically and methodologically. The research reveals overwhelming evidence of a culture of endemic abuse within Australian child welfare organisations whereby harm was done to children in the context of policies and programmes that were designed to provide care and protection. During this era, ideologies underpinning community beliefs were patriarchal, conservative and insular. It was purported that children were ‘committed’ to imposing, regimentally run institutions ‘for their own good’. The project draws on sources from disciplines including history, psychology and literary studies, as the investigation exposes the blurred boundaries which exist between fiction and nonfiction; personal and social memory; official and unofficial narratives; knowing and not-knowing the past. In doing so, it argues that although there can be no single narrative of history, fictional narratives provide another conduit into stories from the past and have the potential to act as agents for social change.

The novel manuscript Girl in the Shadows tells the story of two teenage girls whose friendship, safety and sanity are pushed to the limits when an unexplained phenomenon invades their lives. Sixteen-year-old Tash has everything a teenage girl could want: good looks, brains and freedom from her busy parents. But when she looks into her mirror, a stranger’s face stares back at her. Her best friend Mal believes it’s an evil spirit and enters the world of the supernatural to find answers. But spell books and ouija boards cannot fix a problem that comes from deep within the soul. It will take a journey to the edge of madness for Tash to face the truth inside her heart and see the evil that lurks in her home. And Mal’s love and courage to pull her back into life. The exegesis examines resilience and coping strategies in adolescence, in particular, the relationship of trauma to brain development in children and teenagers. It draws on recent discoveries in neuroscience and psychology to provide a framework to examine the role of coping strategies in building resilience. Within this broader context, it analyses two works of contemporary young adult fiction, Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates and Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender, their use of the split persona as a coping mechanism within young adult fiction and the potential of young adult literature as a tool to help build resilience in teen readers.

The novel manuscript Girl in the Shadows tells the story of two teenage girls whose friendship, safety and sanity are pushed to the limits when an unexplained phenomenon invades their lives. Sixteen-year-old Tash has everything a teenage girl could want: good looks, brains and freedom from her busy parents. But when she looks into her mirror, a stranger’s face stares back at her. Her best friend Mal believes it’s an evil spirit and enters the world of the supernatural to find answers. But spell books and ouija boards cannot fix a problem that comes from deep within the soul. It will take a journey to the edge of madness for Tash to face the truth inside her heart and see the evil that lurks in her home. And Mal’s love and courage to pull her back into life. The exegesis examines resilience and coping strategies in adolescence, in particular, the relationship of trauma to brain development in children and teenagers. It draws on recent discoveries in neuroscience and psychology to provide a framework to examine the role of coping strategies in building resilience. Within this broader context, it analyses two works of contemporary young adult fiction, Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates and Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender, their use of the split persona as a coping mechanism within young adult fiction and the potential of young adult literature as a tool to help build resilience in teen readers.

In Canada, almost everybody is familiar with stereotypes about ‘Native social dysfunction’. Canada’s present-day “Imaginary Indian” (Francis) is indeed associated with substance and welfare dependence as well as family violence and neglect. However, the mainstream tends not to wonder about the actual social suffering behind the image and about the causes of these supposed patterns. In Daughters Are Forever, the Sto:lo / Squamish writer and activist Lee Maracle deconstructs these racist clichés by emphasizing the impact of the colonial process on real-life Native populations. Through a Sto:lo social worker’s attempts to understand how colonial policies have affected Aboriginal motherhood, Maracle demonstrates the roots of Indigenous social ills in collective traumas inflicted over several centuries and transmitted intergenerationally. The conclusion of the protagonist, Marilyn, that “[c]olonization is such a personal process” (216) summarizes the ways in which collective trauma and cultural genocide largely condition individual traumas and grief. Her parallel journeys to help an Anishnaabe woman patient, prevent the abductions of Native Canadian children by mainstream welfare services, and mend her own toxic relationship with her daughters further demonstrate the interrelatedness of Indian policy, patriarchal institutions, and personal and familial spiritual illnesses. They also enable Maracle to show the dangerous ethnocentrism of mainstream psychology and the need to create cross-cultural methodologies and therapies appropriate to the diverse Native North American cultures. By depicting the “unresolved human dilemmas” (Preface 11) of Aboriginal characters, she strives to create social change by drawing her readers into her stories to shock them into awareness.

Esta pesquisa visou compreender a cultura do estupro e a consequente erotização da infância construídas pela sociedade patriarcal e representadas na literatura infantil e juvenil pelo romance Sapato de salto, de Lygia Bojunga, publicado em 2006. Assim, partindo da hipótese interpretativa de que a mídia tem uma grande influência na erotização e objetificação da criança, buscou perceber como a representação da cultura do estupro e a erotização da infância são construídas socialmente pelas mídias e reafirmadas na idealização da feminilidade e da masculinidade, em que se destaca uma espécie de amadurecimento precoce da infância como forma de justificativa para a violência sexual. Desse modo, a relevância desse trabalho se evidencia na necessidade de discutir e denunciar os crimes sexuais contra a infância, em que se deve dar voz àqueles que não têm espaços de fala na sociedade e estão vulneráveis dentro de uma cultura que naturaliza a erotização dos seus corpos e culpabiliza as vítimas pelos casos de pedofilia e prostituição infantil. Para tanto, utilizou-se das teorias feministas como base para se discutir as questões ligadas ao gênero presentes no romance, além disso, houve a necessidade de construção de um quadro teórico que trate das relações da obra com um ambiente tecnológico que enaltece o corpo feminino como objeto. Nesse sentido, utilizou-se da pesquisa exploratória e de levantamento bibliográfico sobre o assunto, possibilitando aprofundar o tema proposto, realizando uma análise de cunho qualitativo. Verifica-se que o sapato de salto utilizado pela personagem tia Inês e posteriormente pela personagem Sabrina nos momentos de prostituição, denota a tentativa de crescimento precoce para justificar a prostituição de uma criança. Assim, procurou compreender como é construído pela autora a simbologia do sapato em contraposição aos pés descalços, e como a sociedade de consumo enfatiza esse objeto, influenciando através das mídias, a erotização da infância, com a necessidade de evidenciar um discurso que transforma meninas precocemente em objetos sexuais. Além disso, verificou-se como a representação do sapato no romance remete intertextualmente ao conto de fadas Cinderela, que é recriado inesgotavelmente pela literatura e por diversas mídias. Destarte, essa pesquisa contribui para discussão e compreensão da cultura do estupro e da erotização da infância presentes na sociedade patriarcal, enfatizando a necessidade de reflexão sobre a temática e da busca pela proteção da infância e pelo fim da impunidade dos agressores sexuais. Além disso, a literatura se destacou como representação dessa sociedade que naturaliza a violência sexual.<br>This research aimed to understand rape culture and the resulting eroticization of childhood built by the patriarchal society and represented in children’s literature, here in the novel “Sapato de Salto”, written by brazilian author Lygia Bojunga, and published in 2006. Based on interpretive hypothesis that the media has a great influence on the eroticization and objectification of the child, it sought to understand how the rape culture and the eroticization of hildhood are socially constructed by the media and reiterated in the idealization of femininity and masculinity, a kind of early maturity of childhood was highlighted as a form of justification for sexual violence. Thus, the relevance of this work is demonstrated in the need to discuss and to denounce child sexual abuse. It hould give voice to those who do not have speech space in the society and are vulnerable within a culture that naturalizes the eroticization of their bodies and blames the victims of pedophilia and child prostitution. For this purpose, feminist theories were used as a basis for discussing gender issues present in the novel, in addition, there was a necessity to construct a theoretical framework that deals with the relations between the novel and a technological environment that validates the female body as a sexual object. Therefore, it was used exploratory research and bibliographical survey about the subject, made it possible to deepen the proposed theme, carrying out a qualitative analysis. It was verified that the high heel shoe, used by the character aunt Inês and later by the character Sabrina, as prostitute, denotes the attempt of early maturity to justify the child prostitution. Thus, it sought to understand how the author builds the symbology of the shoe in contrast to the bare feet and how the consumer society emphasizes this object, influencing through the media the eroticization of childhood, in a need to highlight a discourse that transforms girls early into sexual objects. In addition, it was also verified how the representation of the shoe in the novel refers to the fairy tale of Cinderella, in a intertextual way. This tale is recreated inexhaustibly by the literature and by many other medias. Thus, this research contributes to the discussion and understanding of rape culture and the eroticization of childhood present in the patriarchal society, emphasizing the necessity for reflection about the theme and the pursuit for the protection of childhood and the end of the impunity of sexual aggressors and even more, literature has been stood out as a representation of this society that naturalizes sexual violence.

Se situant dans l’histoire immédiate, la littérature africaine contemporaine participe de la dénonciation de la violence des régimes postcoloniaux et des guerres civiles. Ce sont des nouvelles formes d’écriture caractérisées à la fois par l’urgence et par l’intention de s’éloigner des formes européennes, donnant lieu à une expression universelle et à la revendication du roman comme œuvre d’art. Cette contribution se propose, à partir de neufs romans francophones, anglophones et hispanophones publiés entre 1990 et 2000, d’explorer et d’analyser la réinsertion de la femme africaine subsaharienne dans les archives officielles. À travers des témoignages fictionnels inspirés des faits réels et des histoires relevant de la sphère privée, ces auteur(e)s créent un nouvel imaginaire sur la femme africaine évoluant entre violence et résistance. Par une approche interdisciplinaire, nous tenterons d’identifier les images de la femme dans ces romans, ainsi que les moyens stylistiques et langagiers dans le processus de la réinterprétation des archives et de la réinsertion de la femme africaine subsaharienne dans l’Histoire<br>In relation to the immediate history, contemporary African literature contributes to the denunciation of the violence of postcolonial regimes and civil wars. These new forms of writing are characterized both by the urgency and by the intention to move away from European forms, giving rise to a universalizing writing and the claim of the novel as a work of art. This contribution is proposed, from nine Francophone, Anglophone and Hispanophone novels published between 1990 and 2000, to explore and analyse the reintegration of Sub-Saharan African women in the official archives. Through fictional testimonies inspired by real facts and stories of the private sphere, these authors create a new imagination about African women evolving between violence and resistance. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we will try to identify the images of the woman in these novels, as well as the stylistic and linguistic means in the process of the reinterpretation of the archives and the reintegration of the African Sub-Saharan woman in history<br>En relación a la historia inmediata, la literatura africana contemporánea contribuye a la denuncia de la violencia de los regímenes poscoloniales y de las guerras civiles. Estas nuevas formas de escritura se caracterizan tanto por la urgencia de escribir como por la intención de alejarse de las formas de expresión europeas, dando lugar a una escritura universal y a la reivindicación de la novela como obra de arte. Esta contribución se propone de explorar y analizar la reintegración de las mujeres africanas subsaharianas a los archivos oficiales, a partir de nueve novelas de expresión francesa, inglesa y española, publicadas entre 1990 y 2000. A través de testimonios ficticios inspirados por hechos reales e historias de la vida privada, estos autores y autoras crean una nueva imagen de las mujeres africanas desenvolviéndose entre la violencia y la resistencia. A través de un enfoque interdisciplinario, intentaremos identificar las imágenes de la mujer en estas novelas, así como el estilo y el lenguaje en el proceso de reinterpretación de los archivos y la reintegración de la mujer africana subsahariana en la historia

This dissertation is a critical, performative exploration and analysis of mother-son incest as a site for educational inquiry. Particular attention is given to the sexual abuse of gay males. The text challenges and re-enacts personal and social perceptions of taboos as spaces of silence, trauma, and transformation, drawing on discourses of anti-oppressive pedagogy and narratives of healing. My views of anti-oppressive pedagogy, influenced by Freire, Kumashiro, and others, trouble taboos as personal, political, and cultural narratives. This inter/play of texts serves to acknowledge painful histories associated with incest and, on a conceptual level, to explore secrets, silences and shame around sexual abuse inbedded in cultural curriculum. Curriculum stems from currere meaning "to run," as in a course, and narrative stems from narrare meaning to make known. When both terms are juxtaposed they suggest a running from knowing. What if traumatic sexual abuse histories were placed at the center of pedagogical inquiry? Presented as a work of fiction, my dissertation is informed by an extensive literature review of motherson incest. The image of a mother as a perpetrator of sexual abuse is antithetical to mythohistoric constructions of motherhood. Literature on incest reveals that men are less often viewed as abuse victims, that gay men experience much higher histories of abuse than heterosexuals, that homosexuality and early childhood sexual abuse may be correlated, and that both homosexuality and sexual abuse remain acutely silenced topics in education. All of this generates a lifelong sequelae of problems for male survivors. Trauma necessitates a critical and creative reconsideration of educational research as a site of narrative inquiry and healing. The methodology I employed is mythopoetics presented in the form of a fairy tale within a play. Drawing on the fairy tale genre's tradition as a vehicle for imparting moral and ethical messages, the encompassing play creates a forum for dialogue and disruption of the tale. Music, art, and photographs are integrated into the text to augment the mythopoetic presentation. Mythopoetics becomes an avenue of make believe and a framework for anti-oppressive pedagogy. If education is about learning new ways of being and becoming in the world, we need to re/collect difficult subjects in order to transform lived experiences of learners.<br>Education, Faculty of<br>Graduate

This thesis project is composed of two major parts: my English translation of No decir—a collection of short stories by Chilean author Andrea Maturana—titled Don’t Tell, and an academic introduction to that translation. The first chapter of the introduction gives biographical and cultural information about Andrea Maturana and her work, and it provides a summary of most of the criticism that has been written about her fiction. In the second chapter of the introduction I describe my translation goals and analyze challenges encountered while translating No decir. I first discuss the general problems of any translation project and then focus on several difficulties involved in Spanish to English translation. Finally I analyze a variety of specific challenges from my translation project, providing examples to both emphasize the partial nature of any translation and describe how I attempted to achieve my translation goals.