‘The Girl was Stripped, Splayed and Penetrated’: Representations of Gender and Violence in Margie Orford's Crime Fiction

Abstract

Internationally and locally, crime fiction is a literary genre that has been gaining large numbers of readers as well as increasing academic attention.These texts offer imaginative spaces where authors can expose and critique social problems. Margie Orford's crime fiction offers an avenue through which to explore the pervasive presence of violence in the lives of South African women and children. A number of feminist literary scholars have, however, questioned whether the traditionally male genre of the crime novel can be adapted by women authors to voice the experiences of female characters. Although the challenges presented by the genre are real, the analysis suggests that Orford succeeds, at least partially, in contributing to the larger feminist project of revealing the ubiquity of gender violence in contemporary society. The horrifically violent crimes that constitute the main plot elements of Orford's novels emerge as merely the most extreme examples of the gender violence that has become a normalized part of many women and girls' daily lived realities. This article offers a feminist literary analysis of Orford's novels through the rubric of foundational and contemporary gender scholarship.