Survivor Narratives and the Politics of Echmukutty’s Memoir

Abstract

Recognising the poignance of women’s autobiographical discourses in engendering discussions around domestic abuse and sexual violence, this study takes up the memoir Ithente Rakthamanithente Mamsamanetuthukolluka (This is My Blood, This is My Flesh, Take Them) by the Malayalam writer Echmukutty to examine the politics and possibilities of the narrative in not only exposing the microstructures of hegemonic patriarchy but also in fostering feminist dialogues on women’s rights and justice. To this end, the study reads the select memoir as a ‘claims narrative’ that forges affective ties with its readers, thereby claiming an ethical response from them. The study critically contextualises the memoir to tease out the ways in which Echmukutty narratively constructs her identity position as an agential subject who speaks and affectively prods others to speak. It further argues that Echmukutty’s memoir—an archive of trauma—potentially serves to problematize and, to an extent, alter the generic perceptions regarding the state’s development narratives.