Month: November 2016

In Maggie de Vries’ narrative Missing Sarah, de Vries creates a space for her murdered sister Sarah, a sex worker on the Downtown Eastside, to share her experiences by including excerpts of Sarah’s journal in the narrative. In an excerpt on page 180 of Missing Sarah, de Vries includes an entry which describes the slow degeneration of Sarah’s identity as she works on the streets, illuminating the deep detrimental effects of perpetually enforced societal stigmas on an individual’s sense of self. This deterioration is encompassed by Debbie Wise Harris’ concept of “strategic silences”, as discussed in Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young’s article Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse. Sex workers are silenced by these societal stigmas, and are thus represented as unworthy in the eyes of the public.

In her journal entry, Sarah describes the deep, traumatic transformation of identity she experiences as a sex worker in Vancouver by means of a careful choice of diction. First, Sarah employs words that describe the loss of her old self – “erosion,” “deadening,” “lost cause,” and “nothing” (de Vries 180) – emphasizing not only a loss of identity, but also of the hope of ever returning to it. Earlier in Missing Sarah, de Vries states that “girls don’t start defining themselves as prostitutes overnight” (76) – they only embody this identity once they turn their first trick. This change is time-consuming, and one can thus assume that it is a perpetual transformation of a sex worker’s concept of self. Sarah describes her new identity with terms such as “dirty, slutty, and cheap,” as well as “whore” and “junkie” (180) – all of which are derogatory terms. Sarah says that these are terms by which she labels herself “now” (de Vries180) – but as a result of what?

This question brings us to reality: the identity of a sex worker is dictated by societal stigmas. Operating under the assumption that humans are socialized into rather than born with identities, it is impossible for a woman to label herself as a “whore” or a “junkie” from the minute she develops thought and speech. No: these are derogatory societal stigmas which perpetuate the perception that sex workers are, to use Sarah’s choice of diction, “dirty, slutty, and cheap”. Over time, as Sarah faced these stigmas daily, she evidently internalized these opinions of herself, thus experiencing the aforementioned “erosion of feeling” (de Vries 180). It is at the point of this internalization that the concept of “strategic silences” comes into play. Although Jiwani and Young discuss stigmas surrounding Aboriginal sex workers, this theory can also be applied to any sex worker. The authors state that, as sex workers are silenced by societal stigmas, their backgrounds are forgotten. This contributes to their representation in society as “deserving of violence” (Jiwani, Young 899), for their families, friends, and personalities are disregarded.

In sharing her experience of identity loss and transformation, Sarah is able to speak on behalf of sex workers to humanize their experiences and defy these strategic silences. Her testimony acts as a warning against the internalization of these stigmas, and it points to a deep need for change in society’s treatment of those working in the sex industry.

Works Cited

De Vries, Maggie. Missing Sarah: A Memoir of Loss. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2008. Print.

Jiwani, Yasmin, and Mary Lynn Young. “Missing and murdered women: Reproducing marginality in news discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895.

I think it is safe to assume that whenever one does anything in their everyday, others’ opinions of them greatly influence their actions. Is this influence also a factor for an author of a life narrative, but on a wider scale? And, if it is, what does this experience suggest about the legitimacy of any life narrative?

These are questions that float through my mind as I read Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith’s “Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights”  in comparison with G.T. Couser’s “Signifying Bodies”.

In short, I do believe that writers of life narratives consider others’ opinions of their works, although I do not believe that this is a restrictive or delegitimizing sentiment. In Schaffer and Smith’s article, the authors describe an element of unpredictability in the circulation and reception of a life narrative. Simply put, there is no way for the author or publisher to truly know how their audience will react, nor who their audience will eventually be (Schaffer, Smith 18). As a result of this unpredictability, I would argue that the writer is actually freer to portray their self and situation just as they are. They do not need to write to please the masses because there is no way that they would be able to do so in the first place. What this leaves is an unhindered writer, such as Stella Young. She shares her opinion regarding “inspiration porn” frankly: she does not sugar-coat her anger at the segregation of disabled people. She is free to portray herself and her situation just as they are, because she does not control her audience or their reception of her work.

There is a point to be made, however, which questions whether the freedom of the authors of life narratives actually inspires them to portray themselves truthfully, or whether it causes them to overly dramatize their self or situation. In his section titled “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir”, Couser describes many types of “persuasive speech or writing” styles in the disability memoir (Couser 33), each of which portrays the author’s ‘trauma’ or experience somewhat problematically. Be it idealist positivity (rhetoric of “triumph”) (33) or extreme negativity (“gothic rhetoric”) (35), the dramatization of one’s life narrative discredits the legitimacy of their published narrative. It can cause the reader to wonder:

“Did they really experience this, or are they just over exaggerating?”

There is a sense here that, although it is completely up to the writer to portray themselves as they like due to the unpredictability of circulation and reception, there is still a general expectation that one who bears witness to a traumatic event must be respectful and honest about it.

In the end, the author of a life narrative is in a position of freedom. Because of the possibility for individuals to experience similar forms of trauma, however, it is important for authors to be honest in their storytelling. Mutual respect will ultimately be the determining factor for the positive reception of a life narrative.

Works Cited

Couser, G. Thomas. “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir.”Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 2009. 33. Print.

Schaffer, Kay, and Sidonie Smith. “Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights.” Human Rights and Narrated Lives (2004): 15-20. Print.