Terri Weaver

ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0001-9713-8361

Graduation Semester and Year

2021

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in English

Department

English

First Advisor

Cedric May

Abstract

By analyzing the experiences of four different incidents of shaming women—Dallas police officers photographing partially nude prostitutes during booking, Anita Hill, Monica Lewinksky, and Christine Blasey-Ford—in contemporary American History in the same way as one would analyze literature, there becomes similarities between the archetype of the fallen woman and the treatment of the women. Each situation is paired with literary texts including Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott,” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. This pairing helps to reveal that the archetype of the fallen woman may influence social praxis, and ultimately reveals that the patriarchy’s hegemonic forces are at play when it comes to victim shaming and blaming.

Keywords

Fallen woman, Anita Hill, Lucy Patterson, William Holbrook, Christine Blasey-Ford, Sexual assault, Prostitution

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | English Language and Literature

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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