To Kill A Mockingbird; Passage to India; Atonement

[YeahCorvid]

More then first two than the third, but:

does anyone but me think it is problematic that two novels treated as canon and often taught to teenagers have false rape accusations at their centre? And set up their being discredited as central to racial justice?

It's not the books per se that I'm taking issue with, but their centrality in how we teach literature and, by extension, culture.

It's part of how white men see racism as a real problem, and sexism as a silly made up one. (not that no one is racist, or that perceiving and critiquing racism in art and culure has made it go away. It;s just that it's something that white men feel good about being woke about racism but not sexism)

Don't forget Of Mice And Men as well.

I did TKAM and OMAM at school, as is dd.
Fuck that shit. It's not coincidence that out of the handful of books on the syllabus, 2 involve false rape allegations.

I have only taught TKAM, and think it has to be seen as a novel of its time and place, where black men were routinely at risk from unsubstantiated allegations by white women, or men - which is who the allegation comes from in the novel.

That’s always how I have taught it, and my pupils have often seen Mayella as a victim of patriarchy and poverty - the difference between Scout and Mayella is the difference between their fathers and their education.

It's definitely problematic - I believe literature is important in enabling young people to develop empathy. I don't think it's a coincidence that boys are less likely to read fiction and girls are considered more empathetic. If the fiction boys are "made" to read at school suggests women are likely to falsely accuse men of rape we definitely have a problem! When I teach OMAM and TKAM I always stress that in these stories this is the only power these women have. That in the pecking order, where white straight men are on top, women are very close to the bottom in these societies. And that the authors are highlighted the injustice of this too. But I'm not sure it's enough really.

You would need to also stress that the books are the products of a culture in which there is a myth that women are constantly falsely accusing men of rape.
Otherwise the message comes across that women make false rape accusations because they are powerless, which is all very well for encouraging them to be understanding and forgiving about all these girls making false allegations but perpetuates the myth that it actually constantly happens, just as much as a 'girls make allegations because they are evil bitches' reading would.

Are there any books taught in schools these days in which girls who claim to be raped actually were, out of interest?

Wow your assessment has really provided food for thought. TKAM was the only assigned book I completed in high school. Bluffed my way through the others by skim reading.

I agree with the comments about teen boys reading as a mum of 2 it’s always been a major source of frustration. Especially to see my boys, such avid younger readers, completely lose interest once they hit high school. I felt I was constantly saying hey check out this book it reads like an action movie you’ll love it, to no avail. TBH I’m unsure why. Likely a combination of male socialisation/peer pressure or when my boys where around that age a lot of YA novels where vampire romance.

I did however get DS1 (about 13 then) to watch the TKAM movie he loved it was tearing up. DS2 not so much walked out “it’s black and white”. Er just to clarify the cinematography of the film not the characters.

Yes.
I cringe at books and movies with 'cried rape' storylines, and especially those taught to children.
And yes, in the hierarchy, outrage about men being discriminated against by race will always trump women being discriminated by sex.

But I hate those stories for that reason, that they perpetuate false rape allegation myths.

I agree, OP. I've often thought this. TKAM is revered, but actually, at the heart of it is a kind of demonisation of a poor white family, and in particular a poor white girl.

Another way of highlighting the deep south's racism would have been a story about how black women are abused and raped by powerful white men. But the message might not have been such a palatable one for liberal society.

And then juxtapose that against 'Little Women' which is dropped because it is 'of it's time' and centres women (not all the series) and you have a nice little conspiracy theory going. It's not accidental. It's on purpose.

At the heart of TKAM is a girl who is being raped by her father, but can't accuse him.

Yes I've had a major issue with this since I was a child and my older sister told me

Luckily by the time I got to that age at school, we had feminist English teachers who avoided that type of book and told us why

In fact one of them caused a stir with remarks that were perceived as anti male. She was simply trying to tell girls to be careful.

Tbh I'm sick of all storylines involving rape.

Mayella is a portrayed as a victim too, probably being abused by her father.

Yes but Atticus is a hero because he defends a black man not because he defends the girl - does anyone defend her?

I agree, I hate rape in fiction / TV / film / whatever. It's a sensational thing that male writers want to make use of without having understood it or earned the right.

Atticus treats Mayella with courtesy during the trial, and its the first time any man has spoken to her that way. Her mother died and her father uses her as a replacement wife.
Harper Lee is a woman.

I’m avoiding anything these days where the storyline revolves around rape. It’s either a necessary step so that a woman/girl finds her inner strength, something which happens to a wife/girlfriend which enables the man to become a true protector of women, it’s background noise happening unnamed female characters, usually to show the baddies are truly bad and can be killed with impunity, or it didn’t happen and it’s about the brave struggle of a falsely accused man and his journey in clearing his name.

My main bugbear is being raped being used as a lazy backstory so the writers don’t have to spend too much time on developing rounded female action or justice characters. Like women would just be the usual wives and mothers blah characters unless they’ve been raped.

TKAM is an exploration of a hierarchical culture, and how it affects those who live in it. Its not a linear novel because it wasnt a linear problem.

I have more of a problem with Stephen Donaldson, who uses a rape in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Its central to the plot and main character, and its entirely for entertainment.

I know Harper Lee is a woman, I was jumping to more current stuff. I don't think she treats it as flippantly as I was suggesting about the way it is often used now -

"My main bugbear is being raped being used as a lazy backstory so the writers don’t have to spend too much time on developing rounded female action or justice characters. Like women would just be the usual wives and mothers blah characters unless they’ve been raped."

yes!

I don't think that TKAM is a terrible or shallow book, not remotely. As I said clearly, it's the way that certain themes are centralised in the fiction that young people are strongly encouraged (or made) to read

I think your analysis is spot on, upstart. What we know of the rare cases of genuine false accusations is that some of them do involve women who are the victims of real rape/sexual assault, but who cannot name the actual perpetrator because he's a family member/in a position of power over them. Harper Lee, IMO, gets that absolutely right. (The questionable thing is why use rape as the motivating crime at all - but again, though this would be a grim choice by a modern author, at the time at which Lee was writing, accusations of rape were used as a means of attacking the black community - who, we have to remember, suffered and continue to suffer from all sorts of unpleasant hypersexualisation. For instance, Trump still blames a group of black youths for a rape in central park long after DNA evidence exonerated them).

I also totally agree about rape in the Thomas Covenant books. I got as far as about page 3, realised that rape was being used as the "starting character flaw from which our hero-to-be could recover and start his all important emotional journey and character growth" and thought "fuck this for a game of soldiers."

For me I guess the acid test is "Is rape being used to titillate the male reader here? Is a particular false accusation being used to demonise all women, or delivered in a context which suggests that false accusations are a commonplace and this is only one of many?" As far as TKAMB goes, the answer to both of those is "no."

I take the point of everyone defending TKAM, but I think the interesting thing going on here is the white female/black male dynamic. There will be a lot of male readers in particular who can feel sympathy with a black man wrongly accused of rape. The very widespread problem of white men raping black women is a harder one to turn into a palatable tale of injustice.

I also agree about A Passage to India and Atonement. I enjoyed Atonement, but in real life, for every woman who wrongly accuses a man of rape, there must be a thousand men who rape women and get away with it.

I can't stand Of Mice and Men. A solitary female character, who's a bit vain and silly, and of course she winds up dead. What a great message for 16-year old boys and girls.

Are there any books taught in schools these days in which girls who claim to be raped actually were, out of interest?

I studied I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Colour Purple for A level.

They might have been reformed off the new curriculum though.

I found one series of game of thrones really hard to watch. They defended it saying thatvviolence agajnst women and everyone was rife in the books, but thinking about it... The scene where Ramsey Bolton rapes Sansa - the camera cuts from her to Theon, and you then dont see her, you only see his reaction. So her rape becomes a narrative device to make us feel sorry for a man (and yes, one can feel much sympathy for Theon but this was just a bit too far.)

That whole series had an attitude towards the violence and sexual violence that I can only describe as gleeful (ditto scenes in craster’s keep.)

If it's true that a man is statistically more likely to be raped by another man than falsely accused of rape by a woman, where are all the rapes of adult males in novels and films? It's just not sexually titillating enough for the male gaze and makes men feel a bit uncomfortable. The only ones I can think of are
The Shawshank Redemption
Deliverance (of course it was the hapless chubby character who was raped, not the hyper masculine character with whom the audience identified. "Squeal like a pig" would not have such comedy value in smutty jokey conversations now if it had been Burt Lancaster's character who was raped in the film).

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/lizbourke.com/2013/03/15/realism-male-rape-and-epic-fantasy/amp/

TKAM was inspired by the Scottsboro Boys case.
Lee was a lawyer.
nmaahc.si.edu/blog/scottsboro-boys

The abuser in this book is the father of Mayella. And Jim Crow laws.

Does OMAM have a false rape accusation? Lennie's mental handicap mitigate for his misreading of situations with the girl in Weed and Mayella, I think? Steinbeck wrote better women characters in The Grapes of Wrath. (not hard). But he's no Toni Morrison.

There are far too few women authors studied by school kids and especially boys in this country.

(There are no non British born authors studied at exam level for GCSE. literature. Guess whose policy. )

But agree with your general point OP. Older books in older times have an excuse, but rape as a cheap plot vehicle now is just crap, and dangerous.

Did any one see the film The Accused by Jodie Foster? It was at least a vivid ( and pretty disturbing) attempt to tell our story of the politics of rape.

The Kite Runner and Oranges and Sunshine (which is based on a true story) are the only other ones I can think of, off the top of my head.

Whereas every night on TV, you could probably find half a dozen police procedurals running at the same time, using rape of women as a cheap plot device. By cheap plot device, I don't just mean titillating, I mean things like:

Want to give your female character depth but can't actually be bothered to write her properly? Hey, how about a past rape to inject a bit of darkness into her back story.

Want to give your protagonist a motive to go that bit too far in beating up a suspect, but in a relatable, sympathetic way? Have his wife be a rape victim.

Need a quick, ill-thought-out moral dilemma? Write about one of those grey areas you keep seeing in the press, where she says she froze and never said yes, and he said she voluntarily gave him a bj and there was nothing to suggest she didn't want it to go further. (Bonus points if your drama also shows her becoming "hysterical" as events unfold).

The list is endless.

Actually woman11017, here in NI, and as far as I know in Wales and Scotland too, we still study non-British authors. I choose to teach TKAM at GCSE largely because it’s by a female author and has a female protagonist. We also study poetry by a range of British, Irish, American and Commonwealth writers.

There is Moreno variety at A Level, even in England, and I’ve made similar choices for my A Level teaching, and really push students to read beyond the canon of dead white men, and texts which centre women’s stories in thoughtful ways...so glad I don’t teach in England though!