The Weight of Trauma and History on the Silent Women in The Stone Virgins by Yvonne Vera

Abstract

This research examines The Stone Virgins, by Yvonne Vera, focusing on the female characters of the novel. The Stone Virgins puts on display the many serious stresses placed on women.  Women are victims of war,  patriarchal societies,  social abuse, colonialism, and cultural repression.  In extreme cases, these forces can transform women, causing them to suffer serious mental disorders. We analyze the novel in the light of Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory, especially with respect to her theory of "history and trauma", in an attempt to find the reason for Zimbabwean women’s silence before and after the independence war. The author will apply the idea of history and trauma to the various female characters in the novel as well as to society as a whole, examining the changes to their lives and to the historical path of their nation to see whether the latent problems in a society force history to repeat itself in both their personal experience and their nation’s experiences.  We examine the ways that the patriarchal societies in which these women live belittle or ignore the suffering endured by these women because of their sex, and the ways in which this lack of acceptance multiplies the emotional damage suffered by the women, exacerbating the difficulties the women face in their attempts to reintegrate into society. The author concludes that the silence of the Zimbabwean women in the novel is caused by their history and the latent trauma of their past experiences.