Essay On No Longer Even A Victim

Lucky by Alice Sebold’s is a memoir in which she speaks about her traumatic experience that she went through during her freshman year at Syracuse University in New York. Alice was beaten and raped one night when she was walking alone back to her dorm. A black male grabbed her from behind with a knife and told her that he would kill her if she screamed. The black male took Alice into a tunnel where he beat her up and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Alice was still a virgin prior to the rape. After the black male raped Alice, he showed feelings of remorse, he helped Alice put her clothes back on. Alice lied and told him that it was okay and that she forgave him. Alice reports the incident to the police and the officer tells Alice that she should consider herself lucky because a girl had been killed in the same place where she was raped. The rape took a toll on Alice because she seemed to pretend like it was okay when it was not. She started seeing everything differently, every black male she came across she would be reminded of her rapist. Alice also experienced trouble in relationships with men because she did not consider herself to be worthy of any good guy because no guy would want her since she was a rape victim. Alice expressed anger towards her rapist when she runs into him again one afternoon and he approaches her and says that she looked familiar. Alice speaks about wanting to kill her rapist. Alice’s rapist is taken into custody and they have a

The alarming increase in sexual assault among male and female students is a source of concern. Despite improvements in the general statistics on rape cases, the college setting remains to be the hot bed of sexual assault, especially among the female counterparts (Allen, 2007). A victim, regardless being a male or a female, never feel safe in their life as something precious was taken from them once. Statistics show that 17.6% of women are likely to be victims of rape in their entire lifetime while only 0.3% of males are estimated to be the victims of sexual assault. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS), the most critical ages men and females are likely to be engaged in sexual abuse is when they are children or adolescents (Gonzales, Schofield & Schmitt, 2006).

At some point in their life, every person has been told to “walk in somebody else’s shoes” because they need to be aware of the struggles that other people face, but it is often tough for people to understand things outside of the scope of their own practical knowledge. In her memoir, Lucky, Alice Sebold suffers from this same problem. Throughout the course of her narrative, Sebold thinks of her experience as something that is accessible to be understood by outsiders; in addition to this, Sebold paints her reactions and experiences as a model that she can apply to other victims of sexual assault. Even though Sebold’s story is one of strength in the face of horrible occurrences, her lack of acknowledgement in regards the ways in which other people’s consciousness and coping mechanisms differ from her own makes it far more difficult to sympathize with her than it should be considering the content of her memoir. Evidence of her closed world understanding can be seen from the beginning of the memoir, when she reports her sexual assault to the police (Sebold, 3), later in the narrative, when other people react to her experiences and related feelings (Sebold 146), and finally, and perhaps most significantly, when her close friend Lila undergoes a sexual assault (Sebold 220).

For the purpose of this essay I will be considering Nils Christie’s (1986) concept of the ‘ideal victim’. In considering this concept, I will discuss what is meant by an ‘ideal victim’ and will also be focusing on the high profile Australian criminal case of Anita Cobby in Blacktown on 2nd of February 1986. Anita Cobby was only 26 years old when she was abducted, brutally raped and murdered by four ‘ideal offenders’. This essay will also consider, the ways in which the media and criminal justice system have constructed Anita Cobby as an ‘ideal victim’.

In Alice Sebold’s novel, The Lovely Bones, the Salmon family learns that their fourteen year old daughter, Susie Salmon, has been raped and murdered. Because of this her father, Jack, sister, Lindsey, and mother, Abigail, all go through their own respective journeys in order to accept this ordeal. During this time of grievance for Susie’s family, her father, Jack, believes that the person responsible for the murder of his daughter is his neighbour, a man named George Harvey, and reports this to detective Len Fenerman. However, Len Fenerman becomes too preoccupied with his affair with Abigail to aid Jack with his suspicions. Meanwhile, Susie’s younger siblings Lindsey and Buckley, try to learn how to cope with the loss of one of their very own, without their parent’s attention to aid them. In The Lovely Bones, Susie’s father, mother, and sister, all explore the theme of grief by going on their own pathways through the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, in order to come to terms with the brutal murder of their beloved Susie.

In Lucky, Alice Sebold shows how her life was utterly changed when she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus as a college freshman when she was eighteen-year-old, how she struggled to be understood by the people around, from family to her friends, and how she tried to recover from the physical and psychological trauma and finally triumphed, getting the attacker arrested and convicted. Just as written in the book, "You save yourself or you remain unsaved."(Sebold, 54)

Sexual assault and rape are serious social and public health issues in the United States and throughout the rest of the world. In particular sexual assault on college campus are prevalent at an alarming rate and leaves serious effects on the victims. This essay will focus on statistics and the prevalence and effects amongst college students, through examining a number of reasons why women fail to report sexual assault and rape. This essay will also cover sexual assault prevention and things that can be done to mitigate the risk of becoming a victim to such matter.

A trait that stands out in the book is the symptom of bodily memories. In Melinda’s case, during a frog dissection in her science class, she remembers the opening up and even says, “She doesn’t say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut – I can feel the cut, smell the dirt, feel the leaves in my hair.” (81). One of the other symptoms that Melinda has is self-harm. The first time that this is shown in the book, Melinda says this, “I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep?” (87). Melinda also has a hard time talking to her parents about the rape to which she says, “How can I talk to them about that night? How can I start?” (72). Some victims recover from such a traumatic experience, while others don’t and live a lifetime of depression and must undergo intense therapy. In Melinda’s case, she finds redemption by talking to her parents and the guidance counselor, and putting her faith into her teachers, friends, and her art project at school. Because rape can affect anybody anywhere, everyone should be aware of the circumstances, and how to deal with it.

The story of Alice Sebold’s memoir begins with her as a freshman at Syracuse University and the scene in which she is brutally raped. Sebold writes in vivid detail on how the rape went throughout the beginning of the chapter. She was walking back to her dormitory through a park during nighttime when she was suddenly assaulted and raped by a black man. After the traumatizing experience, she makes her back to her dorm where she told her friends about the rape. One of her roommate’s black friends gives her a hug in order to apologize on behalf of the black men and to make her not judge them as rapists due to the incident. After meeting with her friends, they take her emergency room. A police officer later tells her that she was “lucky”

Millions of Americans are victims of crime every year. Victims of crimes have rights which entitle them to special benefits and help as a result of a crime.

When crimes are committed not do they only affect society but they also impact certain people those who the crime is committed against. This essay will take a look at who is a victim. We will also take a look at the laws protecting victims and what kind of impact do victims have when it comes to sentencing. This essay will also take a look at how the protection of victims has changed over time and the laws created in order to protect those victims.

After high school, many parents are excited to send their children to college. They send them to schools like Hampton, Harvard, and Yale to get the best college education possible. With this in mind, a loving father is also aware that his little girl is growing up and going to find love soon; but what he doesn’t expect is that his beautiful, precious daughter might be the next victim of domestic violence on a college campus. Over the last year, reports of domestic violence have dramatically grown on the college campuses of this country. Nearly one-third of college students report being physically assaulted by a partner they have dated in the previous 12 months (cite!!). Domestic violence impacts a women’s mental , physical,

In today’s society rape and sexual assault is becoming a sheer problem on college campuses around the United States. It is almost everyday that one hears about a sexual assault or rape case happening at a college, and sometimes its at the college that one attends or ones child attends. With this becoming a world renown problem, it can be a very scary thing for not only the students at college but also for the families of college students. To be more specific when it comes to who is starting to commit these hideous crimes, the cops and detectives are starting look at more and more college athletes.

Some might be outraged at the notion that rape is not to be considered a tragedy. It is, of course, a horrific act. One that inflicts so much damage that it can cause PTSD type triggers in survivors. Rape is a before/after moment, people who experience it begin to think of how life was before and now after the event. For instance, with the character Salima, her life before the incident included a loving family with her “good husband” (35) and

This literature review provides a brief overview of six scholarly articles and other facts about sexual assault .This review will first define sexual assault as it is defined in these articles. It will analyze the strengths and limitations of the definition used and will discuss the occurrence of sexual assault in the general population.This review will also illustrate the protective factors, barriers to recovery , impact of development and the specific sexual assault population that are absent in these articles. Sexual assault is a societal issue that impacts men and women at every age in their life, it’s much more highly reported among college aged women. The majority of women who are victims of rape are