Laura Albert was at the center of controversy when it came to light that she, along with her boyfriend, Geoffrey Knoop, duped the public into believing that famed author “JT LeRoy” was an actual person. Even after the exposé of Laura Albert and Geoffrey Knoop as the collective brain, and Savannah Knoop as the public face of “JT LeRoy” in 2006, Albert still held on to the claim that “LeRoy” was indeed, a real person. As time went on, Albert’s insistence of “LeRoy’s” personhood, transformed into a claim that “LeRoy” was simply an outlet for her to express her demons from her troubled past. However, unlike her own past, Albert’s elaborate scheme included a faux-backstory of an HIV infected, transgendered, male prostitute. The scheme has been applauded …show more content…
When she started off, Albert worked in tandem with her then significant other, Geoffrey Knoop. Working as the brains behind “JT LeRoy”, the pair acquired the attention of Dennis Cooper, an author noted for his work in gay fiction. According to Journalist Warren St. John, Albert reaped many benefits from “LeRoy’s” relationship with Cooper. Through Cooper, Albert was introduced to many influential individuals in the literary world, who could help expand the reach of “LeRoy’s” work. As a result, Albert and Knoop’s work as “JT LeRoy” became well known for both content and “LeRoy’s” dramatic backstory (St. John, “Figure in JT Leroy Case Says Partner Is Culprit”). Over time, Albert gained the companionship and moral support of many people including Courtney Love, the widow of Nirvana rock star Kurt Cobain, and actress Winona Ryder (St. John, “Jury Finds JT LeRoy Was Fraud”). The support “LeRoy” received from these people largely came in the form of sympathy. According to a Vanity Fair article, Dennis Cooper felt sorry for “JT” and offered moral support—so much so that he began to suspect that he was being “hustled” by “LeRoy” (Handy, “The Boy Who Cried Author”). Even “LeRoy’s” literary agent, Ira Silverberg, commented, "People were generous because they thought they …show more content…
To lie about something so difficult for those who have experienced it, simply as a cry for attention, is offensive if not violent in itself. Laura likely believed those situations and identifications to be so unsavory, unforgiveable, and/or utterly shocking, that she created a story of redemption about people in those situations. Her actions reaffirm what the world believes about those who do not fit in to society’s beliefs about ideal people—that they are moral deviators in need of some tragic road to redemption, and/or a mere spectacle to be used for entertainment purposes only. Such a way of perceiving marginalized people aids in the structure of inequality by telling them that they are morally broken, that they need to be forgiven of their inherent transgressions, that they are not human enough to be treated with respect and not
In times of struggle, people can be in quite different situations but still come to similar conclusions. Authors Ian McEwan and Paul Elwork, push their protagonists to extremes in their stories but come to a similar conclusion: that to move on in their lives they need to find forgiveness. Briony Tallis in Ian McEwan’s novel ‘Atonement’ leads her family through a long period of denial due to a life-ruining lie she created. Years after the event Briony is still trying to fix her mistakes as she finds she cannot live in a world without reparation. Similarly, Emily Stewart in Paul Elwork’s novel ‘The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead’ lies to people who, after the recent war, are grieving for
He introduces the story of JonBenet Ramsey who had been murdered as a result of competing in pageants and becoming the eye of the media. “JonBenet Ramsey, who would have turned 21 had she not been brutally murdered, remains the most famous pageant girl in the world. All one has to do is say her name and the images come flooding back—not those from photos of her home in Boulder, CO, where she was found in the basement on December 26, 1996, but those of the 6-year-old pixie strutting across pageant stages, looking like a baby Marilyn Monroe with makeup more suited to a woman several times her age” (Hollandsworth 2). The appeal to fear fallacy accompanies as we see different occasions where Hollandsworth is trying to warn the parents by showing them all the negative effects pageant life can have on young girls. “After JonBenet's death, a few journalists went so far as to suggest that her tricked-up pageant look was the reason for her murder” (Hollandsworth 4). Guilt comes frequently to ensure that readers have remorse in supporting the child pageantry in any way. “The message these little girls take away is that natural beauty isn't enough — that their self-esteem and sense of self-worth only comes from being the most attractive girl in the room, not from being smart or resourceful or tough or creative” (Hollandsworth 3). An
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).
Johnny Tremain,” by Esther Forbes is a book about a boy that lived before and during the Revolutionary War. In this book, Johnny Tremain experienced many things as a boy, apprentice, a silversmith, a messenger, and a revolutionary. While Johnny was getting older and time past by, Johnny experienced love, changing, and betrayal in many ways. Johnny changes during the story, as well as experience love and betrayal right in front of him. Although Johnny went through many hardships, he was still able to overcome the obstacles that came to him. After reading “Johnny Tremain,” Johnny never gave up, and people should never give up just because there is a barrier ahead of us. “Johnny Tremain” has many historical figures that allow the reader to know
In Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, the protagonist, a freshman named Melinda must learn the key to recovery after enduring extreme trauma. She struggled to find someone to speak to, due to the school shunning her for calling the police at the party. Throughout Speak, Melinda seeks to recover from the trauma she experienced, especially the cruel actions from her ex-friends. Through symbolism, Laurie Halse Anderson displays the theme in Melinda's perspective.
This book is not for the sensitive reader. In this book, Ronson takes one into the victims lives and shows the effects of brutal shaming. For example, Ronson tells the story of a woman by the name of Justine Sacco, who posted a racist tweet. Within a short period of time, Justine had been completely obliterated on Twitter. Justine lost her job, and self-worth due to her public shaming.
The norm of humans is to glance over the parts that make ourselves look bad, while embellishing details to make others seem inept or incompetent. Walls however, told the truth. She did not want our pity or our condemnation of her parents; instead she wanted her story to be told the way it happened. When Walls was eight, she had an altercation with another child, “I yanked the pistol out of Lori’s hand, aimed low, and pulled the trigger. I was too carried away to hold the gun the way Dad had taught me, and the recoil nearly pulled my shoulder out of its socket” (88). The vast majority of people would not put an incident like that into their memoir, but Walls did. During Walls’ high school years, she got a job working at a Jeweler's shop. One of the things that were on display were watches. Walls had never had owned a watch and she really wanted one of these watches, “The next day, when Mr. Becker went off to the Mountaineer, I opened the display case and took out the four-band watch. I slipped it into my handbag and rearranged the remaining watches to cover the gap” (216). Even though the Statute of Limitations on petty larceny had long since expired by the time she published her memoir, very few people was confess to a crime like
Stephanie Ericsson and Langston Hughes both confront dishonesty in The Ways We Lie and Salvation respectively. These authors present the deviation from the truth as a main theme and maintain that it produces negative impacts on life. However, The Ways We Lie more effectively supported its purpose than Langston Hughes’s Salvation.
The narrator is given a sense of oppression from the beginning of the story by keeping a hidden diary from her husband as “a relief to her mind.” Throughout the story her true thoughts are hidden from the readers and her husband, which gives the story a symbolic perspective.
Women yearn for their voices to speak loud enough for the entire world to hear. Women crave for their voices to travel the nations in a society where they are expected to turn the volume all the way down. The world expects females to stay quiet and ignore the pain brought onto them from sexual crime. They do not dare stand up for what they believe in or discuss their experiences that bring them pain. Poets such as Ana Castillo and Lawrence Ferlinghetti describe parts of life that society often ignores. E. E. Cummings supports the ideas of Castillo and Ferlinghetti by appropriating a more disturbing mindset. These poets demonstrate the way in which women obtained a supposable to behave and react to situations that have caused them harm or have the potential to.
She erases the blackness of the woman to justify her actions, a common endeavor in white America’s exploitation of the black body. This endeavor is evident of the
Although a light read, her experience is heart-breaking as she is abused at home, institutionalized, and instead of being treated for her depression, doctor’s attempt to “feminize” her with eye shadow and lipstick. She is the type of advocate that makes noise in a silence because she tells a tale that would otherwise be unknown.
The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, depicts a woman ostracized from her town in Puritan New England after her sin of adultery is revealed, although the father of the illegitimate child remains unknown to the town. In The Tell-Tale Heart, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator murders an elderly man in the middle of the night and attempts to cover up his crime. Hawthorne and Poe use the psychological torment and suffering of Arthur Dimmesdale and the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart to convey that hiding one’s sinful actions from society leads to the strong emotions of pain and guilt, demonstrating that one can only end their misery, leading to freedom, by accepting and exposing their mistakes to society.
Claudia expresses again and again how marginalized she and her sister perceived themselves to be, "Adults do not talk to us - they give us directions" (10). When Claudia thinks back to a childhood illness she suffered, she remembers her mother's irritation at finding her sick in bed. Claudia questions the reliability of her perceptions of pain and confusion, "But was it really like that? As painful as I remember? Only mildly. Love...eased up into that cracked window" (12). Claudia's mother's irritation is tempered with compassion; she coats Claudia's phlegmy chest with salve and "hands repinned the flannel, readjusted the
It is through the physical pain that the reader understands the emotional strain and turmoil of the protagonist’s plight. The juxtaposition of survival and living are never more evident here. Her children are kidnapped; killed or sold. She has a body still recovering from the birth of a child, and she is forced to take her mother’s place, as a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault. Walker cleverly crafts this sense of desperation with Celie’s soul baring letters to god, the reader realizes she is has no one else to turn to; her writing only re-enforces her father's control over her. Her persevering spirit is what makes her survival so unique in the sense that she does not become embittered through any of it. “I look at woman, tho, cause I am not scared of them.” Telling god that she has not been traumatized at all by her mother’s passing, in fact, she goes further on “Mabey cause my mamma cuss me you think I kept mad at her. But I ain’t I feel sorry for her. (Walker, 5)” This for the reader is the most heart-breaking stance that she takes, as the reader is aware of the fact that her mother hated Celie’s guts with writing agony because her husband choose to rape her when she could not have sex with him. The reader singularly carries this sense of desperation for the protagonist as she continues to power through the intensity that surrounds her.