ABSTRACT
The prevailing contempt of formalism means that literary critics often consider the methods distinct from New Historicism, which scholars since the 1960s have turned to in an effort to devote sustained attention to a text’s sociopolitical context. This chapter explores strategic formalism to consider the collisions of form that impact a character’s ability to speak about her sexual assault. Many scholars have read Melinda’s silence as a problem she must overcome and her ability to speak as a manifestation of her recovery. For O’Quinn, Melinda’s speechlessness is an example of “an arena of ‘voicelessness’ that has historically censored, if not totally silenced, the lives of many women. C. Levine’s strategic formalism has been taken up by literary and cultural critics for a variety of ends. Scholars like L. J. Hilton and L. Shutters used strategic formalism to consider collisions between literary and social forms.
