Carly Mayer

ENGL 7100
Dr. Christopher White

Short Paper 6: Monograph Review

There are so many famous novels and movie adaptations of stories that tear at our

heartstrings. These stories do not have the stereotypical happy ending and reveal a lot of

darkness within the world we are living in. This subgenre is an underrated way of telling a story,

using postfeminist gothic style. This “strain of American women’s fiction that tells tales of

gendered violence and pain”(9) is what the novel Splattered Ink: Postfeminist Gothic Fiction and

Gendered Violence by Sarah E Whitney focuses on.

First Whitney discusses the meaning of the word Postfeminist. This word is contested a

lot because many believe we are still living in a world where we are fighting for women’s rights.

Whether Whitney agrees or disagrees, she does not disclose. However, she mentions how the

Postfeminist Gothic is representing women and women’s risk more accurately, which in turn is

less of a fight for women. This subgenre forces its readers to be uncomfortable and look at the

reality of the women in the story. She is also challenging four different particular authors and

how their violence can be seen against postfeminism.

Whitney also introduces the idea of how these authors adjust their writing as time goes

on, showing “how women negotiate their own fears about violence and victimization in

postfeminist times.”(11) Whitney overall sees these authors as providing literary activism. To not

show the bad girls only as mean girls, but to represent them as “basement captive, incest

survivor, and murdered young woman.”(11) So often, women who are written within trauma, are

expected to overcome it in a heroine role. However, trauma is rarely such as this. In the

Postfeminist Gothic subgenre, readers experience the messy and the struggle.
 Whitney begins to explore the Gothic genre in general. She introduces her readers to the

idea of gothic literature and its functions. Gothic literature was once dominated by men, but is

now seen as a ‘women’s genre.’ This is because gothic fiction focuses on the transgressions of

one’s life and experience. The most important aspect of this section of her introduction, is the

history of women writing gothic fiction. It is revealing how authors have been inspired time and

time again to take it a step further into establishing what gothic literature is. The novels she

discusses present worlds that are haunting for its readers, putting the horrible reality of the world

onto the page. “Postfeminist gothic work is thus beholden to feminist gothic’s foregrounding of

patriarchal critique and to its literary model of rendering trauma’s intense impact.”(15) There has

been some critiques of this genre. People believe that though it is shedding light to these

experiences and possibilities, it is not offering any solutions. So the question is how is this

helping women at all? The genre fights a fine line between allowing the heroines to overcome

their troubles, without the critique of victimization. Whitney welcomes the critiques and analyzes

them, understanding that as feminism shifts, so will literature. Overall, the goal is frequently

changing, but highlights the horrors of racial, social, and sexual violence for women.

Whitney analyzes five different female novelists throughout her monograph. The first

chapter follows Alice Sebold and specifically her novel The Lovely Bones. Whitney’s critique of

Sebold is how her novels seem to be with a postfeminist gothic agenda, but undermine it as well.

Whitney looks at Susanna Moore next. Whitney says, “As a whole, her work connects the

realities of women’s physical, social, and sexual disempowerment— all of which are written on

the bodies of her broken heroines— to the false promises of postfeminism.”(53) Moore is often

providing the correct point of view, with still not empowering her heroine. Her next novelist is

Sapphire. Whitney believes that Sapphire’s novel Push is a stronger representation of

postfeminist gothic, offering up a heroine that is working at changing her trauma, but not overly

victimized. The fourth novelist that Whitney explores is Patricia Cornwell. Whitney inspects

how Cornwell’s recurring character Dr. Kay Scarpetta “illustrates how postfeminist gothic

aesthetics can be understood in complex ways.”(97) The last author that is discussed in

Splattered Ink is Jodi Picoult. I began reading Picoult’s novels when I was in middle school, and

she is one of the reasons I chose to read this monograph. Whitney explores Picoult’s “new

momism”(121) and how she represents the maternal figures as warriors as they face tragedy.

Whitney uses each novelist to analyze and relate to the next novelist that she discusses.

Whitney mentions the tropes that are used between all of the authors and how they inspire each

other. She also focuses on both the good and the bad of the authors. In doing so, she is exploring

how the representation of gendered violence through the lens of incredible famous authors is

influencing postfeminist gothic, or how postfeminist gothic is influencing them. This form assists

in her exploration of what postfeminist gothic fiction really means, and how gendered violence

throughout these novels support that.

In this monograph, Splattered Ink: Postfeminist Gothic Fiction and Gendered Violence by

Sarah E Whitney, she has used over five hundred opinions from different journalists, authors,

scholars or critiques. The index is sixteen pages long. Whitney did a fantastic job in finding a

wide range of opinions and information to inform her readers. I think having contradicting views

can make it easier for the reader to comprehend a new topic, and allows them to shape their own

point of view. The structure of her book was very informative as well. It consisted of seven

different chapters, beginning with the introduction. Each chapter had sub parts within them that

had specific focuses that she would touch on. This made it easy to follow, as well as assisted

Whitney in projecting all the different viewpoints of postfeminist gothic fiction. Though this
book was only written five years ago, I wonder if Whitney has any new or differing perspectives.

I would be curious to see what they are. I have always subconsciously loved this genre, without

knowing it was this genre that I was loving. I think it allows for so much growth within our

society and gives a form of entertainment to address our reality. Though it is fiction, nearly every

woman reading these novels can find a moment that they have experienced themselves. I am

overjoyed that I now have an understanding of what I enjoy to read, and why I am enjoying it. I

also am inspired to see what new novels there are within the genre, and how they compare to

their successors.
 Works Cited

Whitney, Sarah E.. Splattered Ink : Postfeminist Gothic Fiction and Gendered Violence,

University of Illinois Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central,

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/govst/detail.action?docID=4792728.