TALKING BODY: IN SEARCH FOR REDEMPTION

Abstract

Anne Speckhard’s Bride of ISIS is a fictional narrative that focuses on the vulnerability of a traumatised woman and how, in her search for redemption, was manipulated to think that she is better off dead than alive. This research is using hermeneutics in the analysis of the protagonist that was groomed to become a suicide bomber. Casting a different gaze on female suicide bombers and finding out that religion is not the only reason why female suicide bombers detonate themselves. Terrorist group uses female suicide bombers to commit murdersuicide and redefining it as ‘martyrdom’. The character used her body as a site of power and resistance; her body is used as a weapon of mass destruction. This research combines the study of trauma and psychoanalysis in grooming a female suicide bomber, a crucial problem in literary works as there is a lack of interest in this genre. This seems to imply the lack of attention given to an important reality, on how Muslim women are becoming active participants in a violent world of terrorism. Utilising the concept of trauma’s engraving memory by Cathy Caruth and Lacan’s death drive theory, this research seeks a better understanding of the realisation that suffering is an instrument that could exploit someone who is traumatised in order to victimise others. The study concludes that when hope diminishes, the female character sees martyrdom as the ultimate redemption, out of dire hopelessness and rough condition she dwells in; there is the promise that she will have a better life in paradise. This research is relevant knowing that terrorism must be considered not as a personal problem, but a manifestation of the disintegration of the social order and therefore a dilemma for the integrated community to elucidate on.