Representing Sexual Assault and Trauma in Una’s Becoming Unbecoming and Courtney Summers’s All the Rage

Abstract

The paper aims to explore the representation of sexual violence against women in two different mediums and to demonstrate the relevance of graphic novels by comparing and contrasting the graphic novel of Una’s Becoming Unbecoming with the traditional novel of Courtney Summers’s All the Rage. Through the application of theory of Intermediality, the paper aims to unearth the sexual violence faced by women in selected texts. The author of the graphic narrative employs language and visuals to portray the incidents and aftereffects of sexual assault and trauma. In contrast, the traditional novel presents the problem of sexual violence through stand-alone text. The research paper’s focal point is that graphic narrative thematizes intermediality and conveys the issue of sexual assault in a way that is far more effective than a traditional novel in terms of raising awareness. In Becoming Unbecoming, text and pictures relate to each other and communicate meaning in numerous ways, but in All the Rage, the text is given meaning through language only.