Meena Kandasamy’s When I hit you: Or, A Portrait of The Writer as A Young Wife (2017) and Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion (2018): A Narratological Study

This study aims to investigate the subjugation of women in the twenty-first century, examining how they continue to experience gender-based violence, whether in the East or the West. It attempts to emphasize how a novelist’s narrative strategies may express their protagonist’s traumatic experience as well as their healing process. Despite the evident cultural differences between India and the United States of America, sexual abuse still occurs in the modern world. Hence, writers are keen on presenting the issue in their literary works with various narrative structures reflecting their own perspectives of that kind of abuse against women. In Meena Kandasamy’s When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of The Writer as A Young Wife (2017) and Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion (2018), both protagonists are prone to forms of gender-based violence despite their different cultural backgrounds. However, they show a resilient attitude towards the cruel experience. In this study, the researcher attempts to explore the novelists’ narrative techniques and their significant influence on presenting the protagonists’ struggle and healing process through applying Gerard Genette’s narrative theory. Furthermore, a special focus will be directed to tracking the narrative structure and how it presents their emotional and psychological journey in seeking recovery from their trauma.