The Rhetoric of Silence in Contemporary Autopathography: Susan Gubar and Eve Ensler on Gynecological Cancer

Abstract

Despite Mary Deshazer’s affirmation that “living with cancer has become the topic of our times” (2005, 1), some cancers are still covered by a blanket of secrecy. This paper discusses Susan Gubar’s and Eve Ensler’s autopathographies about gynecological cancer in relation to silence. It explores their discussion of the possibility of finding words for their illness and their reflection about the unspeakability of the sick female body, concluding that they construct silence as undesirable and ineffective.