ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the claim that the raped and murdered woman of Judges 19 is silenced by the narrator. It uses speech act theory and the work of Mieke Bal to consider the levels of communication in the text. The question is asked: at which levels is the woman’s voice operative? Though she is silent at the textual level, the voice of her dismembered body is clearly heard within the wider narrative in effecting the military muster. Judith Butler’s theory of grievability is used to analyse the surprising prominence which her story is given. Finally, her voice to the modern reader is examined. Sara Ahmed’s work on affect theory is used to show how the story exercises ‘torsion’ upon the reader. The idea of anamnestic solidarity is discussed and how active recollection can redeem the past and offer hope for the future. The story is then brought into dialogue with modern rape culture by comparing it with modern stories of sexual violence, including the Delhi bus rape. Themes common with modern sexual violence are drawn out: commodification and depersonalisaton, invisibility, trafficking, silence, subordination of violence against women to other concerns, the unrapeability myth, and the use of female rape to assault men.
