Rape In Amber Mauldin's Perfectly Broken

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

Near the end of the novel, Ma has become a transformed person, in a whole new position in the family. Ma can be seen as the leader of the family, thinking of plans and directing the family on what to do when she decides what is best for the family, and trying her best to keep the family together. “Times when they’s food an’ a place to set, then maybe you can use your stick an’ keep your skin whole. But you ain’t a’doin’ your job, either a’thinkin’ or a’workin’” (p.481).

I find the theme in this book to be something that an anyday person or child would experience in a day or much longer piece of time. Any person can experience times of confusion and emotional instability, but if that person sticks it out; they will find an answer to their problems or they will answer answer it for themselves. This pertains to a lifelong conflict, but it does not just pertain to that. It relates to a situation in a day, week, or even, an

The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to

In the book I can connect to some of the things in it. In life people have happy things happen and negative things happen. “Life throws too much crap at us as it is, so why hold onto something

During the spring of 2014, a 15 year old girl at St. Paul’s School had been raped by then senior, Owen Labrie Jess Bidgood and Motoko Rich, from The New York Times, state in their article, “Rape Case Puts Focus on Culture of Elite St. Paul’s School” that the senior had pre- planned his “senior salute”, a school ritual in which older students make sexual advances towards the younger ones. With the evidence of a handwritten list, prosecutors concluded that Labrie had the intentions of “scoring” the most girls, with the victim’s name in capital letters. Prosecutors said that the young girl did not feel comfortable with his advances at first, but after some persuasion from a mutual friend, she decided to go along with it. However, Labrie’s plans

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.

Change is the instance of becoming different or advancing into something unique, either positively or negatively. On a daily basis, change occurs through many different occasions when people feel the need to develop physically and emotionally. Don Aker’s The First Stone portrays 2 young protagonist , that have both experienced life changing pasts, and they use the support from each other to change their lives for the better. The novel conveys that for an individual to discover their true identity, they must associate themselves with individuals who bring positivity into their lives, they must acknowledge who they truly are, and finally, they must be able to accept responsibilities in their lives.

Through characterization and vilification, Joyce Carol Oates emphasizes both the wickedness and vulnerability of her female characters. Although Oates’s writing is predominantly seen as feministic or through a feminist lens, Oates says she is "very sympathetic with most of the aims of feminism, but cannot write feminist literature because it is too narrow, too limited” (Chell). While Oates may not directly say she writes feministic literature, the topics she writes about include the recognition of the difficulties specific to a female writer according to Chell. She speaks of rape, sexual assaults, the cultural difference between men and women, and the difference judgement that men and women face for their actions. In many of her novels, her

Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates is an intense story about the lives of a young woman and her daughter. During the story, together, both of them experience a traumatic situation. This story is not just filled with tragedy, but triumph also. Life is what you make of it. People’s responses to situations can change the outcome. Even though this book’s title is bold, the story actually depicts a genuine love story after suffering from a brutal crime. Teena and Bethel choose not to stay a victim, but to move forward with their lives and find the beauty in it. They will never forget the past, but will not let it hold them down.

Like, how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, right? I mean, I know it happens but I just don’t understand it, that’s the part I really don’t understand.” In the beginning, she sounded insensitive towards the idea of rape and her absurd fantasies surrounding it but this quote proved her invulnerability and ironic theme in the story because she realized that she is no longer in control of the situation and the man has power over her because they could still go ahead with the rape. Another ironic fantasy is when she ends up falling in love with the man that shares leukemia with her, “it turns out that he has leukemia himself, and he only has a few months to live, that’s why he’s going around raping people, he’s very bitter because he’s so young and his life is being taken from him before he’s really lived it.”

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

A.Hagen explains transference as taking your own person realities weather it being, personal, sensory, emotional or phychological, that coandsie with your character feeling at that present time. To tranfer you own experiences that are more suited to you personial and real life then to transfer them untill they become synonymous with you characters.

Patricia Lockwood’s The Rape Joke is a risky composition- not because it discloses information about Lockwood’s personal rape experience, but because it does so from a comedic stance, ridiculing the unfortunate event and the events leading up to and after it. While the creation of the poem was prompted due to the sexual assault she experienced, the content and subject are not centered around the incident or the assaulter but around rape culture and the sociological concept of victim blaming, from both society and oneself. There is no such thing as a rape joke-the joke is the incredulous ways society has guided people to respond to it.

“For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a “fiance”, why she had played at beggining again” (122) Finding himself in a similar situation as her, he finds a way to comprehend her actions. This final understanding of her mother still implies his inability to relate to women, since his mother, the only woman he managed to relate to, was dead by the time he managed to relate to her, indicating he might not truly understand her since he no longer remembers her that well.