Tainted Witness in Law and Literature

Chapter five examines two examples of unsympathetic women witnesses and the transits of their testimony across an assemblage of legal and literary modes of judgment: 1) the rape case brought by Nafissatou Diallo against former head of the International Monetary Fund and former French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Diallo and her testimony travelled from criminal court, through the court of public opinion, to civil court in search of an adequate witness and 2) the autobiographical fiction of Jamaica Kincaid, who offers a literary witness in contrast to the sympathetic, pure, young victims featured in humanitarian campaigns. The chapter argues that the dynamics of witness tainting previously analyzed make it imperative that we adopt an ethical response that is not primarily grounded in identification or compassion. The chapter concludes by arguing that sympathy fails to provide an adequate ground for ethical witnessing and that we must learn to engage with the unsympathetic woman witness.