The Making of Rape Culture: Fault-lines in extant myth, literature, art, real life and justice

Abstract

When a black or a white man rapes a woman, what are the possible ramifications of such an act? What
happens if the victim is a white woman? What if it is a black woman? Examining various patterns of
criminal behaviour towards women: this paper seeks to analyze a recent newspaper report and two
novels, and draw attention to role played by older myths that feature in our cultural memory, which
have been variously represented in art: painting, sculpture, and narrative. Through a detailed analysis
spread across literatures, cinema, and contemporary, actual events, this paper endeavors to unravel what
Rape Culture means, how it has been represented throughout the crisscrossing streams of mythology,
literature, and art; and in the process, interrogating the very conceptualization of Justice.