Open Access“Why would a dead girl lie?”: Hannah Baker as Willful Child ‘come to voice’ in 13 Reasons Why
Author(s) -
Amber Moore
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
papers (victoria park)/papers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1837-4530
pISSN - 1034-9243
DOI - 10.21153/pecl2018vol26no1art1088
Subject(s) - testimonial , girl , resistance (ecology) , subject (documents) , psychology , psychoanalysis , art , developmental psychology , advertising , library science , computer science , business , biology , ecology
This paper examines representations of hostile and benevolent sexism in the young adult novel 13 Reasons Why (Asher, 2007), and how the female protagonist, Hannah Baker, resisted such manifestations of rape culture. Hannah exercised such resistance by taking on a willful girl-child (Ahmed, 2014) subject position through the creation of her métissage of taped testimonial messages recorded for thirteen peers who in some way influenced her death by suicide. As such, her project enabled Hannah to ‘come to voice’ (hooks, 1994) particularly in response to three sexist characters – Tyler, Bryce, and part-time narrator, Clay.