“No, Thank You”: Polite Anger from Christina Rossetti to Christine Blasey Ford

Abstract

In this essay, Christina Rossetti's depiction of women's anger in her dramatic monologue "No, Thank You, John" (1862) is placed in the context of the 2018 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The 1862 poem exposes the dynamics of anger and restraint that characterize the experience of anger for many women, dynamics on display in the contrasting testimonies of Ford and Kavanaugh. Rossetti's poem uses the conventions of the dramatic monologue, politeness, and other techniques to show how women make their anger safe. At the same time, the poem makes women's anger available to others, including other angry women like the activists who responded to the Kavanaugh hearings.