Background/Rationale
The United States Department of Health and Human Services reports that child sexual assault (CSA) is highly prevalent. As adolescents, 1 in 5 females and 1 in 20 boys experience sexual assault (Child Sexual Abuse Statistics, n.d.). In addition, 1 in 33 men and 1 in 6 women have had rape in their lifetime (Victims of sexual violence: Statistics, n.d.). However, the true frequency of child sexual abuse is unknown since so many victims do not reveal or report their abuse, making the published figures merely a portion of the picture. According to research, rates might range from 1% to 35% (Child Sexual Abuse Facts & Resources, n.d.). If an abused child’s trauma is unresolved and unhealed, they are more likely to become abusers themselves and experience alcoholism, depression, anxiety, and surviving domestic violence, among other problems. This leads to a cycle of violence that affects the CSA survivor’s life and those around them (RAINN). This research focuses on how CSA pervades culture through modern literature, emphasizing the tremendous importance of CSA in society and the necessity of confronting trauma.
Research Problem and Objectives
By concentrating on the fictional portrayal of these cycles of violence via the perspective of literary justice, this research will study and consider how childhood sexual abuse is depicted in modern fiction. The main study question is: How are childhood sexual abuse and the ensuing justice represented, and more particularly, how is a literary kind of justice achieved in the chosen novel Lolita by V. Nabokov?
Research Design and Research Methodology
Knowledge gaps, the extent of a body of literature, the clarification of concepts, and an investigation into the research methodology are all addressed by scoping reviews. While valuable on their own, scoping reviews may be used to confirm the applicability of inclusion criteria and prospective questions and be beneficial predecessors to systematic reviews. Scoping reviews are an effective tool in the ever-expanding toolbox of evidence synthesis techniques. Even though they serve objectives distinct from systematic reviews, scoping reviews must be done with integrity and transparency to get reliable outcomes. A systematic review is a study of the information on a particular topic that uses methodical and clear techniques to locate, choose, and critically assess necessary primary research as well as gather and analyze information from the studies that are reviewed (Zawacki-Richter et al., 2019). The use of systematic reviews will help delve deeper into the topic of child sexual abuse and create a comprehensive analysis of the physical and psychological repercussions of such an issue.
Value of the Research
While it is uncommon for child sexual abuse to be shown in modern literature, it is crucial to analyze the given topic in order to represent readers who have personally experienced such violence. Moreover, it will help provide the audience with the chance to learn about how cycles of violence may be identified and avoided. The fiction genre offers readers a valuable forum for exploring subjects that are either personally relevant or utterly foreign to them. For the sake of this research, it is possible to use fiction as a kind of place to explore violence, even if the metaphor of a safe space produced by fiction can be problematic from the reader’s perspective. This is significant because it provides readers with a space in which they may learn more about CSA, cycles of abuse, justice, and the events they or people around them are having without having to leave the comfort of non-reality. Overall, the given research can be valuable since it will clearly illustrate the psychology of abusers and issues that arise in children upon experiencing sexual abuse.
Reference List
Child Sexual Abuse Facts & Resources (n.d.) Web.
Child Sexual Abuse Statistics (n.d.) Web.
Children and Teens: Statistics (n.d.) Web.
Zawacki-Richter, O., Kerres, M., Bedenlier, S., Bond, M., & Buntins, K. (2019) Systematic reviews in educational research: Methodology, perspectives and application. Germany: Springer Nature.
Victims of sexual violence: Statistics (n.d.) Web.