Image of the Abject and Grotesque Woman in Tante Rosa by Sevgi Soysal and Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson / Sevgi Soysal’ın Tante Rosa ve Jeanette Winterson’ın Vişnenin Cinsiyeti Eserlerinde İğrenç ve Grotesk Kadın İmgesi

Abstract

The female image is presented in an exaggerated and humorous manner in both social and corporeal contexts in Sevgi Soysal’s Tante Rosa (1968) and Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry (1989). This article analyses how Kristeva’s concept of “abject” and Bakhtin’s concept of “grotesque” are employed to define this bodily image in both works. The main characters of the novels, Rosa and the Dog-Woman respectively, portray the communities they reside and/or depart as carnivalesque and position themselves in grotesque depictions. These portrayals, grounded in the notion of “abject,” illustrate how the discordant and monstrous woman manages to form her identity. While exploring the self-formation of female identity, both works engage in the representation of fairy tales in line with realistic depictions and adopt a grotesque narrative style. The monstrous feminine, encompassing both societal and physical dimensions, alongside the modes of rebellion through which these female characters navigate their own identities, serves as a lens for the examination and critique of gender and sexuality in these works. Thus, employing a comparative literature approach, this study delves into how the hyperbolic, yet non-caricaturized and non-dramatized depictions of women’s bodies and lives contribute to the formation of the female identity in accordance with her own volition within the works of Soysal and Winterson.

Keywords

• abject
• grotesque
• female body
• tante rosa
• sexing the cherry