Speaking (in) the Silences: Gender and Anti-Narrative in Carole Maso’s Defiance

This essay treats Carole Maso’s novel Defiance as an instance of feminist “anti-narrative.” Toward this end, it considers the novel’s use of direct address, its formal and thematic silences, and its parody of narrative convention. It reflects on the lack of scholarship on the novel and situates it in the context of Maso’s nonfiction to argue that it might be understood as a piece of feminist narratology.