Walls of Silence: Spatial Memory and Captivity in Dot Hutchison’s The Butterfly Garden

Abstract

Dot Hutchison’s The Butterfly Garden portrays society’s indifference to the silence and disappearance of vulnerable girls who are neglected. Hutchison highlights silence not only as emptiness and absence of speech rather presents it as a control exerted over the lives of girls held captive within the garden by Gardener. The title of the paper implies the entrapment of young girls within the closed space and through their life dual nature of silence is analyzed within the closed space. The Garden recollects the power imposed by the Gardener to oversee the voice, memory and survival of victims in a captive space. Gardeners’ orchestration of silence enforces submission and curtails freedom. Furthermore, silence becomes a tool of oppression which shapes identity of the victims with the confined space forcefully and erases resistance. The design of the garden itself serves as an architecture of oppression which aestheticizes violence. Trauma is not only presented through fragmented memories but also in the form of physical imprint within the Garden. The survivors reclaim their freedom through the silence which serves as a form of power within the Garden. By interweaving spatial theory, trauma theory and subaltern studies the article argues Hutchinson’s portrayal of silence as a weapon of power, a wound of trauma and a fragile form of resistance to overcome captivity.