(Vulner)[ H]abilidad: un análisis de las mujeres en las novelas de Paula Hawkins
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25145/j.clepsydra.2019.18.07Keywords:
vulnerability, Paula Hawkins, ethics, contemporary literatureAbstract
The notion of vulnerability has been applied to diverse areas of knowledge, particularly in the last years. However, its denotation has been traditionally attached to negative ideas, such as weakness, passivity or susceptibility to abuse, which results in the victimisation of vulnerable subjects. In this article I aim to reorient the notion of vulnerability, understanding it as a permeable and dynamic term that facilitates the ethical encounter among individuals and that helps vulnerable subjects to regain agency. With this approach, two very popular novels are analysed: Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train (2015), and Into the Water (2017). Drawing from Judith Butler’s notion of the epistemological frames and Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical encounter, the female leading characters of the novels are analysed. In this way, a reflection on the current ways of exploiting women’s vulnerability in contemporary west societies is provided. This leads to conclude that vulnerability can be used as a tool of resistance against patriarchal customs.
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