The reflective process of the perpetrator: representations of rape in novels of C.N. Adichie and V.T. Nguyen

This article examines a new iteration of the representation of rape that is centered on the perspective of the perpetrator of sexual violence. By outlining advances in feminist discourses, critical men’s studies, and literary criticism, this article situates the current development within a tradition of theory and representations of sexual violence, which is followed by the author’s reading of rape in The Sympathizer (2015) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006). Narrated as men who slide into passivity in the build-up to rape, the protagonists of these novels are at the same time not condoned and learn to accept their guilt, shame, and responsibility. These representations follow established literary conventions of repression and silence, but then move beyond the unspoken to a constant articulation of the meaning of rape for the perpetrator. Following calls for contextually sensitive approaches to the study of violent men, this article explores how both novels narrate the perpetrator’s circumstances, choices, reflection, and growing awareness of the implications of rape. The meanings of rape for perpetrators, as represented in fiction, and their potential to create narratives with which to combat sexual violence are discussed.