"Locating Power and Redemption in Evangelical Communities: Reading the Preacher's Wife and Daughter in Contemporary Southern Women's Fiction" Público

Abstract

Preachers hold immense power in Southern evangelical communities and thus become significant literary subjects and objects of scholarly attention, however little attention is paid to their wives and daughters, the first fatalities of their religious power. This thesis considers Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, Sheri Reynolds’ The Rapture of Canaan, and Lee Smith’s Saving Grace as feminist texts which expose the corrupted power at work in the household of the preacher while also exploring how their female protagonists find redemption and healing from the violence that results. I examine how the women and girls of these texts make meaning and cultivate mother-daughter relationships as a space for restoration. Firstly focusing upon girlhood and coming of age for a preachers’ daughter, I reveal how preachers control the knowledge that their daughters have access to, which girls respond to in varying manners. Next, I study how preacher characters construct false narratives about their wives, portraying them as inherently sinful and in need of saving, and how preachers’ wives engage in counter-narrative to resist the control of their husbands. Finally, I locate these discussions of coming of age and marital strife in the context of war trauma, as each preacher uses violence to make meaning of the world they returned to after fighting in war. Trauma is thus circulatory in the preacher’s household, and the only way forward is through feminine connection and narrative. 

Table of Contents

Introduction...................................................................................................................................1 

Chapter 1: Coming of Age in a Preacher’s Household: Preachers’ Daughters and the Control of Knowledge....................................................................................................................................14 

Chapter 2: “A Helper Suitable for Him”: Preachers’ Wives and Counter-Narratives .............................40 

Chapter 3: Circulatory Trauma in the Household of a Preacher and Healing Through the Feminine.......................................................................................................................................61 

Conclusion....................................................................................................................................72 

Works Cited...................................................................................................................................76 

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	English
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Women's Studies Religion, General Literature, American
Palabra Clave	Literature Southern
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Trapp, Joonna, Emory University
Committee Members	Ladd, Barbara, Emory University Gordon, Michelle, Emory University

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