‘Women Bleed in Private’ / Miscarriage Goes Public: A Relational Response to Social Silence over Miscarriage in Sarah Ruhl’s Writings

Abstract

This article discusses Sarah Ruhl’s miscarriage experience in her autobiographical work Smile (2022) and in a selection of poems from 44 Poems for You (2020). The discussion considers Ruhl’s account as quest narratives in which she voices what she considers a tragic event in her life to underline the need to overcome the usual social silence that reigns over miscarriage. Ruhl’s prose and lyrical approaches to her miscarriage are both physical and emotional, but also social, cultural and political. Her accounts help to destigmatize this loss and to hold control over her own experience in ways that transcend the social constructions of how to experience miscarriage. As argued, Ruhl’s approach is that of a communicative dyadic body that informs us on the signals of miscarriage, of her personal experience, and what she did to get pregnant again and reconcile with this loss. Beyond the medical usefulness of her work, through her writings, Ruhl invites readers to question the social and cultural assumptions surrounding miscarriage. And in doing so, she helps women who have experienced miscarriage to regain confidence in their own bodies and the strength to revisit and fight against the common conception and representation of miscarriage as merely a physical and emotional wasteland.

Keywords

• sarah ruhl
• miscarriage
• social silence
• perinatal bereavement