Abject Mimesis: Grotesque Femininity and the Crisis of Representation in Lady Oracle and The Gaze

Year 2025, Issue: 9, 225 - 243, 23.10.2025

Henrieta Krupa

https://doi.org/10.64957/nesir.1800064

Abstract

This article examines how Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle and Elif Shafak’s The Gaze mobilize grotesque femininity to destabilize the mimetic ideals of beauty, coherence, and narrative unity. Both novels center on protagonists whose excessive bodies and fractured identities render them unreadable within dominant aesthetic frameworks, thereby raising critical questions about who may be represented, desired, or made visible. Drawing on feminist theory—particularly Julia Kristeva’s notion of abjection, Luce Irigaray’s critique of phallocentric discourse, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque—the study develops the concept of abject mimesis: a feminist representational strategy in which distortion and excess expose the exclusions that sustain mimetic norms. In Lady Oracle, Joan’s grotesque embodiment and parodic use of popular genres disrupt the logic of coherence and closure. In The Gaze, the unnamed obese narrator and the novel’s structure reveal the violence embedded in visual regimes. Taken together, these texts reconfigure mimesis not as faithful imitation but as rupture, where bodily and narrative excess become sites of feminist resistance. By pairing Atwood’s postmodern irony with Shafak’s mythopoetic layering, the article advances a theory of abject mimesis as a feminist poetics of grotesque excess, contributing to debates in feminist aesthetics, genre studies, and the politics of representation.

Keywords

Abject mimesis , feminist aesthetics , grotesque femininity , representation , the gaze

Supporting Institution

This study was conducted without any financial support.

Thanks

In this study, artificial intelligence-supported tools were used to a limited extent within the acceptable boundaries defined in Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies’ Artificial Intelligence Use Policy; all content has been reviewed and approved in its final form by the author.

İğrenç Mimesis: Lady Oracle ve The Gaze’de Grotesk Kadınlık ve Temsil Krizi

Abstract

Bu makale, Margaret Atwood’un Lady Oracle ve Elif Şafak’ın The Gaze (Mahrem) romanlarının, güzellik, tutarlılık ve anlatı birliği gibi mimesis ideallerini istikrarsızlaştırmak için grotesk kadınlık kavramını nasıl işlevselleştirdiğini incelemektedir. Her iki roman da aşırı bedensellikleri ve parçalanmış kimlikleri nedeniyle egemen estetik çerçeveler içinde “okunamaz” hale gelen kadın kahramanlara odaklanır; böylece kimin temsil edilebileceği, arzu nesnesi olabileceği ya da görünür kılınabileceği gibi soruları gündeme taşır. Julia Kristeva’nın “iğrençlik” (abjection) kavramı, Luce Irigaray’ın fallosantrik söylem eleştirisi ve Mikhail Bakhtin’in grotesk kuramından yararlanarak, çalışma “iğrenç mimesis” (abject mimesis) adını verdiği bir feminist temsil stratejisi geliştirir. Bu stratejide, biçimsel bozulma ve aşırılık, taklit normlarını sürdüren dışlamaları görünür kılar. Lady Oracle’da Joan’un grotesk bedeni ve popüler türleri parodi yoluyla kullanışı, anlatıdaki tutarlılık ve kapanış mantığını bozar. The Gaze’de ise isimsiz şişman anlatıcı ve romanın yapısı, görsel rejimlere içkin şiddeti açığa çıkarır. Birlikte ele alındığında bu iki metin, mimesisi sadık bir taklit değil, bir yarılma olarak yeniden kurgular: bedensel ve anlatısal aşırılıklar, feminist direnişin alanlarına dönüşür. Atwood’un postmodern ironisini Şafak’ın mitopoetik katmanlaşmasıyla yan yana getiren makale, grotesk aşırılığın feminist bir poetikası olarak “iğrenç mimesis” kavramını geliştirir ve feminist estetik, tür kuramı ve temsil politikaları tartışmalarına katkıda bulunur.

Keywords

İğrenç mimesis , feminist estetik , grotesk kadınlık , temsil , bakış

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