Biblical Women in Contemporary Novels in English From Margaret Atwood to Jenny Diski (Costerus New, 226)

Biblical Women in Contemporary Novels in English: From Margaret Atwood to Jenny Diski
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Setting the Frame. Voices and Silences
Part 1: The Silenced Feminine?
	2 Ambivalent Responses to the Bible
		1 Listening to the Implicit Dimension of the Bible
		2 Challenging Women\'s Silencing
			2.1 Dumb Silencing
			2.2 Garrulous Silencing
			2.3 Deaf Silencing
	3 So Many Forms of Silencing to Denounce
		1 The Demoted, Repressed Feminine The Wild Girl
		2 Amputated Subjecthood The Handmaid\'s Tale
		3 Boarding the Ark of the Refusées The Book of Mrs Noah
		4 Beware of the Big Bad Lies Sisters and Strangers
		5 The Voiceless Cipher in the Text The Red Tent
		6 Battling Against God Only Human
		7 Feminist Responses to Women\'s Silencing
Part 2: Voices Draped in Silences
	Section 1: Encountering the Other through Silences: Diamant\'s The Red Tent and Roberts\'s The Wild Girl
		5 Mary Magdalene\'s Quest for Identity and God
			1 Introduction into the Ineffable Divine
				1.1 A Voluptuous Dissolution of the Self
				1.2 Ineffable Beauty and Harmony
			2 Regaining Primeval Wholeness
				2.1 Sexuality as a Route to the Divine
				2.2 The Marriage between the Inner Man and the Inner Woman
				2.3 The Rehabilitation of the Female Divine Principle
				2.4 Celebrating Life and the Eloquent Silence of Intimacy
			3 The Harrowing of Hell and Resurrection
				3.1 Mary Magdalene\'s First Trip to the Nether Realm
				3.2 On the Erroneous Belief in the Bodily Resurrection
				3.3 Mary Magdalene\'s Second Harrowing Scene
					3.3.1 Baptismal Purification in the Mother\'s Womb
					3.3.2 Mourning for the Dead Lover and Mother
					3.3.3 The Ultimate Ineffability of Pristine Unity
					3.3.4 The Goddess\'s Blessing of Her New Initiate
			4 The Voice of Female Dissent
				4.1 Each of Us Is the Rock
				4.2 Sailing in and to Silence
	Section 2: Blurred Voices and Spectral Silences: Roberts\'s The Book of Mrs Noah and Diski\'s Only Human
		6 Mrs Noah\'s Journey to Creativity
			1 On the Polyphonic, Silent Use of Epigraphy
				1.1 Echoing Donne\'s Erratic Progress of a Multiform Soul
				1.2 In the Image of ... Donne\'s Soul Outshining Noah\'s Ark
				1.3 Sharing a Playful, Ironic Distance towards Authority
				1.4 Tampering with Donne\'s Voice
			2 A Great Web of Blurred Voices
				2.1 Voice Blurring across Narrative Levels
				2.2 Blurring within the Main Narrative Level
				2.3 A Mixture of Chaos and Rhythm Celebrating Plurality
				2.4 Delivered from Confinement, Delivered through Confinement?
					2.4.1 A (Sick)Room of Her Own
					2.4.2 A House with Many Windows and Many Doors
					2.4.3 Confined to the Depths by God the Father
					2.4.4 Relegated to the Gaps
					2.4.5 Non-Confining Holds
				2.5 A Heavy Weight to Bear?
					2.5.1 Taking Off the Burden of Censorious Voices
					2.5.2 Bearing ... Also the Responsibility
					2.5.3 We all have Our Cross to Bear
					2.5.4 This Womb that Shuts Me Up
					2.5.5 Bearing to Death
				2.6 Conjugating \"To Come\"
					2.6.1 She\'s the One He\'s Lost
					2.6.2 The Body, the Book
					2.6.3 A Leap into the Unknown
					2.6.4 Coming to Terms with Termination
					2.6.5 A Double Release
			3 Climbing down Deep Inside, to Spectral Silence
				3.1 Partying with the Quintessential Silenced
				3.2 Speaking with(out) the Lost Mother
		7 Sarai\'s Story Game of Competing Voices and Rival Desires
			1 Voice Blurring in a War of the Wor(l)ds
				1.1 At the Start, there is an End
				1.2 Unidentified Narrative Voice for a Silenced Heroine
				1.3 Blurred Rival Versions of the Beginning(s)
			2 Sarai\'s Early Encounter with Spectral Silence
				2.1 Primeval Loss and the Beginning of Desire
				2.2 The Beginning of the End, and Disappointing New Starts
			3 Sarai-Abram-God, a Destructive Triangular Desire
				3.1 When the One Finds Her Own Voice, the Other Finds God\'s
				3.2 Enter I Am that I Am, the Homewrecker Sarai Nil, God One
				3.3 The Battle of Wor(l)ds Sarai One, God One
				3.4 The Choice of Laughter Sarai Two, God One
	Section 3: Reticent Testimonies: Atwood\'s The Handmaid\'s Tale and Tennant\'s Sisters and Strangers
		8 Offred\'s Reticent Tale of Resistance
			1 An Introduction to Reticence
			2 Offred\'s Polyphonic Testimony
				2.1 Dialoguing with the Narratee(s)
				2.2 Passing On Other Mutinous Female Voices
					2.2.1 Moira, the Archetype of the Rebel
					2.2.2 Offred\'s Sombre Double
				2.3 Offred\'s Chatty Discourse with the Maker
			3 Fighting for a Plurality of Identities and Meanings
				3.1 Remembering Her Former Selves
					3.1.1 Self-Definition as a Weapon of Self-Affirmation
					3.1.2 Offred\'s Recollection of Her Former Multifaceted Self
				3.2 Games of Words, Power and Desire with the Commander
					3.2.1 A Reticent Account of Ambivalent Feelings and Influence
					3.2.2 Fencing with, Devouring and Withholding Words
				3.3 Offred as Secret Lover
		9 The Playfully Reticent Tale of Eve\'s Journey
			1 An Introduction into Grandmother Dummer\'s Reticence
			2 From the Passive Princess to the Demonic Lilith
			3 Subverting the Extremes From Harlot to Madonna
			4 Female Lies and Truths From Courtesan to Bluestocking
Part 3: Closing Silences Voicing Openness
	10 Passing on the Heroine\'s Voice
		1 Mary Magdalene\'s Distrust of Words
		2 Eve\'s Ultimate Subversive Enactment of Female Stereotypes
		3 Sarai and the Ineffable Human Horror
		4 Dinah\'s Life beyond the Grave
		5 The Irreconcilability of Mrs Noah\'s Aspirations?
		6 Offred\'s Blurred Voice
	11 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Subjects