Watching Daughter Rite, I definitely recognized the theme of violation. At first the two daughters emphasized the mother’s violation of privacy and how she would read their diaries, etc. It was clear that the mother had serious issues. This became all the more clear during the one daughter’s description of her rape. She was obviously violated by a man in one of the worst and traumatic ways a girl can be violated. Her violation was clear when she described how she felt the need to cover herself up and swaddle herself in her bedspread. What was debatably equally worse was how her mother reacted to the rape. She tried to ignore the fact that the incident happened all together.
While watching, I was thinking how much this, too, was a violation. In ignoring her daughter’s pain and trauma, the mother is consequently complicit in the situation. In standing by and not doing anything about the rape, I felt that the mother as well was a participant in this violation. If a mother does not stand up for her daughter, especially in the face of serious danger, she is in a sense condoning the violating behavior against her daughter.
I think another violation that I picked up on in the film was when the 2 women were going through their mother’s desk. Hadn’t they just spent the earlier parts of the film relating how violated and angry they were when their mother did, essentially, the same thing to them? Going through her drawers, her envelopes, her collections – they also were violating their mother’s privacy in ways that seemed natural, seemed like their birth right. I think this was an interesting reversal of the positions of the women, so that now the daughters were the violators and the mother was violated.
Wow – didn’t pick up on that one at all! The film is definitely scewed in emphasizing the violation of the daughters.