Will the Violence End with Us?: Understanding Domestic Violence in It Ends With Us and When I Hit You

Domestic Violence has been a tool wielded by patriarchy to suppress and subjugate women for centuries. With societal structures that encourage violent power structures within domestic spaces, women are often on the receiving end of this form of violence perpetrated by men. Two pertinent works that have arisen in the last decade that deals with domestic violence include It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover and When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy. While It Ends With has acquired for itself quite a controversial standpoint within literary spheres, When I Hit You has been praised for its authenticity and first-hand narrative that looks at the lesser-known intricacies of domestic violence. What both the novels have in common is the answer to the pertinent question of why women do not escape the violence sooner. Susan Brownmiller, in her influential work Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape addresses domestic violence as part of broader issues of male dominance, power, and societal structures that perpetuate violence against women. Against the backdrop of Brownmiller’s argument the paper intends to analyse domestic violence as a tool of control and enslavement and also juxtaposes the two novels to analyse the method in which women respond to the violence, and the predicament of being in love with your abuser.

Keywords: Domestic Violence, Abuse, Patriarchy, It Ends With Us, When I Hit You