Reorienting Vulnerability: An Analysis of Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24197/ersjes.42.2021.105-125Keywords:
Vulnerability, Potentiality, Deborah Levy, Giorgio Agamben, Hot MilkAbstract
This article seeks to challenge the traditionally negative connotations of the notion of vulnerability. I propose to approach the concept in dialogue with Giorgio Agamben’s idea of potentiality to demonstrate that both potential and vulnerability can be regarded as transforming and empowering characteristics for the subject. I analyse the protagonist of Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk (2016) under this light to show how a subject can use vulnerability as the fulcrum of freedom and agency, particularly in the context of a problematic mother-daughter relationship. I suggest that understanding vulnerability as potentiality allows a reorientation of our conception of the victim or the vulnerable as subjects in potential power.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors retain publishing rights and grant ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies right of first publication.
Simultaneously, all articles and reviews published in ES Review until nº 43 are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) while those published from nº 44 onwards will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), by which others are allowed to share and use their work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
In addition, ES Review allows authors to arrange additional contracts for the non-exclusive publication of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. In such a case, authors are required to approach the editor(s)/publisher to request permission.