The Rape Narrative in the American South: A Psychoanalytical Examination of Sexual Violence and the Melancholic Internalization

This study examines how sexual violence, specifically rape, is used as a trope to understand the complex and dysfunctional makeup of the South. The study is informed by the trauma theories of Freud and Caruth, the abjection theory of Julia Kristeva, and Jessica Benjamin's theory of mutuality.