Repression and Resistance

Surabhi Jha

Repression and Resistance

A Feminist Interpretation of Select Holocaust Novels

Chennai · Berlin · Bruxelles · Lausanne · New York · Oxford

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jha, Surabhi author

Title: Repression and resistance : a feminist interpretation of select Holocaust novels / Surabhi Jha.

Description: Chennai ; New York : Peter Lang, 2026. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2025035760 (print) | LCCN 2025035761 (ebook) | ISBN 9781803749167 paperback | ISBN 9781803749174 pdf | ISBN 9781803749181 epub

Subjects: LCSH: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature | Jewish women in literature | Psychic trauma in literature | Holocaust survivors in literature | Feminist theory | LCGFT: Literary criticism

Classification: LCC PN56.H55 J53 2025 (print) | LCC PN56.H55 (ebook)

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025035760

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025035761

Cover image: designed by Abanti Kundu

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISBN 978-1-80374-916-7 (Print)

ISBN 978-1-80374-917-4 (EPDF)

ISBN 978-1-80374-918-1 (EPub)

DOI 10.3726/b22626

© 2026 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne (Switzerland)

info@peterlang.com - www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

Advance Praise

‘Surabhi Jha explores feminine experience in Holocaust literature, highlighting a diverse spectrum from torture to solidarity and from pain to empowerment. Her reading attends to the operations of patriarchy, institutional tyranny and focuses on psychological complexities of situated female suffering that include masochism and marital violence, among other things. The book emerges as a fine literary study of feminist agency, pitted against what is perhaps the most significant historical crisis of twentieth century Europe’.

—Arka Chattopadhyay, Associate Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar, India. He has been awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship 2022–2023 at the University of Edinburgh and Harry Ransom Centre Fellowship 2023–2024 at the University of Texas at Austin.

‘This work of Holocaust novels provides a compelling examination of one of the most horrific phenomena in human history during the past several centuries. Author elucidates a creative feminist interpretation of the incident, presenting interesting perspectives on how the survival of the women is intertwined with expressions of solidarity against systemic oppression. This also raised significant problems such as disability and the female body as a cartographic tool to delineate the feminist history of the Holocaust. This work examines the history of women’s bodies, considering the body as a locus of oppression and resistance, where resistance manifests through voices of solidarity, and solidarity is intertwined with the history of emotion, which serves as an inspiration for future history of thoughts’.

—Dr Mrinmoy Pramanick, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Indian Language and Literature, at the University of Calcutta, and also serves as the founder coordinator of the Centre for Translation and Literary Geography. He has won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation in 2023 by the Government of India and received Charles Wallace India Trust Translation Fellowship 2025 at the BCLT, University of East Anglia, UK.

‘This book offers a compelling window into an array of literary representations exploring women’s experience during the Holocaust. It initiates an important investigation of issues concerning women’s victimhood, suffering, resilience and agency in the face of Holocaust turbulence thereby inviting researchers to acquire fresh insights into Holocaust studies. It deals with issues such as sexual politics, silence and narrative dynamics to amplify our understanding of the relationship between feminist concerns and Holocaust experience. Drawing on major highlights in contemporary Holocaust scholarship and Feminist criticism, this book will interest scholars of Holocaust studies, Women’s studies, literature, sociology and trauma studies’.

—Dr Suranjana Choudhury, Assistant Professor, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. She is the recipient of Charles Wallace Research Grant to the United Kingdom.

To my mother, whose pain has awakened a voice within me.

Table of Contents

Advance Praise

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction to the Racial Hygiene

Chapter 1 Torn Between Choices: An Existential Reading of William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice

Chapter 2 Re-mapping the Survival of Womanhood in Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader