51 pages • 1 hour read
Miriam ToewsWomen Talking
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Author’s NoteChapter Summaries & Analyses
Author’s Note Summary: “A Note on the Novel”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions and depictions of domestic and sexual violence, rape, and suicidal ideation.
Toews recounts the historical events that occurred between 2005 and 2009 in the Manitoba Mennonite colony, located in a remote area of Bolivia. During those years, many girls and women woke up groggy, bloodied, bruised, and in pain. They had been attacked during the night, and when they reported it, they were told they were attacked by ghosts and demons, or that God or Satan was punishing them for their sins. Some men accused the victims of using the reports to cover up adulterous behavior, and others accused the women of making everything up, saying that the stories were “the result of wild female imagination” (xi).
It was finally revealed that eight men from the colony were using animal tranquilizers to knock the women out and rape them. The men were arrested, tried, and convicted in 2011, receiving long prison sentences. However, even after the men were locked away, the assaults continued.
The book Women Talking is “both a reaction through fiction to these true-life events, and an act of female imagination” (xi).
Author’s Note Analysis
In this one-page note to the reader, Toews sets the stage for her novel. She uses the historical events of the attacks in the Manitoba Colony as a premise for the women of fictional Molotschna Colony. The note, written matter-of-factly, understates the horror and gaslighting that occurred in Bolivia—a simple statement of facts that allows the reader to develop a personal response to what happened while preparing them to face the violent acts the novel is based around.
That the attacks continued after the men’s imprisonment illustrates that it was not just a few men who perpetrated the violence; the women lived in a culture of abuse that was colony-wide. The inclusion of this detail thus lays the groundwork for the novel’s consideration of The Violent and Repressive Nature of Patriarchy as a system and ideology. In repurposing the abusive culture’s own words in the note’s closing statement, proclaiming the novel “an act of female imagination” (xi), Toews also gestures toward The Healing Power of Community and Communication: Reclamation of womanhood and solidarity among women can begin to right the wrongs of patriarchal violence.
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