Fragmented Selves: Ambiguity and Identity in Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (2021)
Fragmented Selves: Ambiguity and Identity in Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (2021)

Summary/Abstract: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder is a 2021 magical realism novel that tells the story of a nameless mother, formerly an artist, who believes she metamorphoses into a dog, an ambiguous and feral transformation that reflects her struggles with self-identity, motherhood, suppressed rage and societal norms, leading to an identity crisis. This paper aims to analyze how ambiguity in Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder is used as a feminist strategy to highlight how imposed feminine and maternal identities fail to fully grasp the complexity of the protagonist. This paper focuses on exploring narrative, bodily and emotional fragmentation through a feminist reading of the novel Nightbitch and the theoretical framework consists of Hélène Cixous’ views on the power of “écriture féminine,” Julia Kristeva’s theory on maternal abjection and Adrienne Rich’s comparison between motherhood as a lived experience and motherhood as a social institution. The protagonist’s ambiguous metamorphosis and fragmentation reflect her identity crisis, her descent into abjection, as well as her rejection of the institutional expectations of motherhood, therefore asserting a more realistic, complex and fragmented self.

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