March 12–Saint Margaret and Horner’s “Saints’ Lives”

In her chapter “Saints’ Lives,” Shari Horner writes, “the public display of violence means that the body itself functions as a kind of text, not just to be seen or watched, but read and interpreted. Acts of torture produce marks on the body… The saint herself often invites or suggests the torture; she writes her own story…” (96). Do you think this could be seen as an act of feminism by turning the public scrutiny women’s bodies usually get into a way to create her own narrative? How does Margaret do this in her tale?