Silence and anguish: Muting the feminine voice in Éliette Abécassis’s La Répudiée

Abstract

As a seminal French-Jewish author, Éliette Abécassis frequently focuses on Jewish issues pertaining to the feminine condition, with emphasis on women’s rights and liberties. In La Répudiée (first published 2000), she invites the reader to discover the mysterious, hermetic world of Hasidic Jews residing in the sacred city of Jerusalem. Within this patriarchal community, the locus of the narrative concentrates on the plight of the protagonist, Rachel, a young woman married to Nathan. This essay examines the imposed silence that oppresses the voice of the Hasidic wife Rachel, who is struggling with the unspeakable crisis of infertility in her marriage. This analysis will also study Abécassis’s revision of her biblical ‘sister’, Rachel, as a quintessential figure of suffering and valiant self-sacrifice.

Keywords

desire oppression patriarchy procreation sexuality silence suffering tradition

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