Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality, 2024
Year: 2024
DOI:
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visiting Annie Ernaux’s Happening: Painting “The Abortionist’s Studio” from the Whisks of her Memory
Anjali Manhas and Dr. Sresha Yadav Nee Ghosh
ABSTRACT:
The convergence of memory and writing to encapsulate the experience of a reproductive body under the scrutiny of state, medical, legal and above else personal standpoint is unveiled by Annie Ernaux in her 2001 memoir Happening. Adopting a nonchalant attitude to cope with an inadvertent situation in her life, then 23-year-old Annie gives her readers an unflinching account of her abortion journey and also the effects of consequential denial on women. The social and moral obligations ingrained in a woman’s mind related to her own body are contravened by Ernaux. The paper analyses how the writer convenes a subjugated and perennial feminine narrative from the fragments of her memory and past journals to surmount the psychosocial elements of guilt and shame related to women’s reproductive bodies and the choices associated with it. It also proponents the importance of safe abortion for women everywhere as a reproductive choice. Impervious to the foetal life in her narrative, Ernaux parallels her abortion story to a simultaneous birth story of herself. The insurgence of her succinct attempts at abortion determine the urgency of the situation, she isn’t oblivious of the fact that her life needs saving too, “I was probably wiser because of the abortion. In my student bathroom, I had given birth to both life and death.” The memoir presents the women who are making difficult choices such as abortion with a relatability which they often seek and for that she weaves her body and experiences into her writing.
keywords: Abortion; memoir; Happening; memory; writing