A Knife Through her Heart: A Woman’s Absurdism in Jaqueline Harpman’s "I Who Have Never Known Men"
Absurdism can be defined as rejecting the search for meaning in a meaningless world. In her novel I Who Have Never Known Men, Jaqueline Harpman uses absurd aesthetics and a dying world where men no longer exist to re-signify the philosophical concept of absurdity through a gynocentric perspective. In the study of philosophy, women are more than not excluded from narratives such as absurdity. Albert Camus, the mind behind absurdism, and other male philosophers refer to humanity as “man,” which allows them to group together all experiences and ignore what separates women from men: deep rooted global patriarchies. In Harpman’s work, the reader sees how isolation in womanhood leads to hopelessness as a result of the morals androcentric societies force on women, literal depictions of philosophical suicide through the symbol of a heart, and a reworking of vanity to fit the idea of the unknown in an absurd world. It is far more common in literature a...
