Female struggle and negotiation of agency in Christina Dalcher’s Vox

• Main Author: Maria Pinakoulia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece 2020-12-01
• Series: Ex-centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media
• Online Access: http://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/ExCentric/article/view/7670

Christina Dalcher’s Vox (2018) tells a powerful story where the female body is the target of the hegemonic discourses and controlling systems of a totalitarian government. In this dystopian American society, women lose every right over their own body and agency as they are forced to perform stereotypical gender roles and follow the government’s disciplinary rules and practices. The novel links the physical and psychological violence on women with the use of language. Women are forced to wear metal wrists that limit their language production, thus making their bodies ‘docile’. Vox, however, is also a story of female negotiation and agency. The main protagonist, Jean, manages to articulate her own subjectivity and bring down the government. Employing the post-structuralist theories of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, this paper discusses the concept of the female body as site of power relations and constant negotiation for agency and freedom. The paper examines the different forms of violence in the female subject and offers an extensive analysis of the female body as the locus of resistance, self-articulation.