Essay on Rape

This personal confession shows that Mrs. Mallard, though she will mourn at first, now is free to “live for herself,” (228) not for her imposing husband. Before her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard believed she was in a healthy, normal marriage. This death revealed to her how while she cared about her husband, she despised the lack of freedom her marriage had given her. All of the realizations that Mrs. Mallard reaches during her time of reflection shows the readers exactly why she will no longer mourn the death of her husband.

     There are two sides to a rape, the rapist and the victim. The victim is most of the time a woman but men are raped as well. It is a common myth that there is a type of woman that is more likely to be raped. This is indeed a myth, most of the time rape is a crime of opportunity, the victim is not chosen because of her looks or behavior, but because she is there (Benedict 2). The average rape victim is 18-39 years old and female, the average rapist is 25 years old and male. The effect of rape on a woman is an enormous one. The woman will come away from a rape with both physical and psychological damage. Eventually the physical wounds will heal, the psychological wounds will take quite some time before or if they ever heal (Grady 4). A sexual assault robs the woman of a sense of control; a feeling of loss of freedom is common among rape victims. To put her life in order she must regain this sense of control. Almost all rape victims suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (Benedict 2). The first symptom is the reliving or re-experiencing of the

As a woman, the narrator must be protected and controlled and kept away from harm. This seemed to be the natural mindset in the 19th century, that women need to have guidance in what they do, what decisions they make, and what they say. John calls her a “little goose”(95) and his “little girl”(236), referring her to a child, someone who needs special attention and control. His need for control over her is proven when she admits that her husband is “careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction”(49). John has mentally restrained the speaker’s mind, she is forced to hide her anxieties, fears and be submissive, to preserve the happiness of their marriage. When the narrator attempts to speak up, she is bogged down and made guilty of her actions. Her husband makes her feel guilty for asking, he says, “‘I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind!’”(225-226). By making her feel guilty for her illness, John has trapped her mentally from speaking up about it, convincing her that she must be more careful about her actions. Men often impose the hardships placed upon women during this era. They are often the people reassuring them of their “womanly” duties, and guiding them

“The Longest War” by Rebecca Solnit convinces readers that the violence against women are in the content of the United States and the world. Solnit presented information that is regarding violence and rape statistical and personal views of gender and the inequality of male violence toward comparing women’s violence to men or women. She uses numerical facts ad provides statements of how this affects the way women perceive their surroundings. Solnit clearly makes a strong frequency and violence of rape by listing the details of rape and violence eight times within the first paragraph of the text. She uses many examples of how rape is a gendered issue and how many victims that fall prey to violence which lends us toward an engaging need to

In a crescendo of pain, devastation and hysteria, the girl mentions her terror in reliving the rape when going through the justice system. Juxtaposed with the "jaws rasp[ing] on the naked bone", the questioning is yet another violation

As Alice was going through major hell during the rape and even after the rape, it seemed as it was not taken seriously by others. Alice describes her pain, fears, and many problems that came along the way when it came for fighting for herself and the after effect of the rape. Being a rape victim was not easy, and Alice showed many signals that she needed more than just comfort, but sadly many of them failed to provide that for her.

think that she is cheating and revels in this victory by saying “in his own

Prison Rape is no secret in today’s society. The American media has portrayed prison rape as a joke (Don’t drop the soap) in countless films, television shows, and in music, but have not realized the extent of how dangerous this crime is. Some cops even use this method as a means to get a confession from a suspect. A major obstacle in solving Prison rape is the notorious under-reporting of the crime. Only 16 percent of prison rape victims report their victimization. Reasons for under reporting are fear of consequences, shame, guilt, embarrassment, and refuse to relive painful details. This paper explores prison rape and its psychological and physical harm to not only inmates, but to society as well. It also discusses recent efforts to

Rape is beyond dispute one of the most explicit events that can occur to a person in order to harm them on a physiological, emotional and even physical level. The violation here is subverted into a domination of the “poor rapist”. However the heroine encounters a violation on a physical level, which becomes obvious, when she states:” I was inexperienced at dog-fashion fucking and had probably torn the skin of my cunt a little.” (70) There is physical pain as a result of the violation, but the way the heroine reacts and wipes the pain away by marginalizing (“a little”) the injury makes it less harmful and consuming. At first it seems, that the rape has no quality for her as the source for shame. But on the same page she also describes the way Toni and her interacted right after the rape had taken place: “Tomi glanced at me quizzically once or twice, but I managed to avoid her eyes”. This sentence is easily overlooked because she had taken everything that happened beforehand so lightly, but here there is a moment of judging a moment of trying to avoid shame. He avoids her eyes, because she

For example, when the men in the church picked the old woman up by her arms and carried her out of the church. (Walker, 2003). The cold she felt going back outside. I could feel her humiliation and hurt. The disgrace of being thrown out of God’s house had to be horrible for her to go through.

At this point she simply finds no other way but to accept the stereotypical view of a young innocent girl in a relationship with an experienced man, another example of women being victims of male authority. The key to the bloody chamber is the key to her selfhood and subjugation that will ultimately kill her. ‘The protagonist’s husband clearly considers her an object of exchange and plans to inscribe upon her his continuing tale of punishment for wives’ disobedience’[viii] again showing how women make themselves victims of their own behaviour, Helen Simpson’s interpretation is that ‘I really cant see what’s wrong with finding out about what the great male fantasies about women are’ [ix] The heroine fights against the victimisation, and indeed reverses role with the male in the story, as it is Marquis who dies and it is the female who leaves this chamber and finds happiness.

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

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.

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 speaker struggles within herself between the love for her father, and her hatred for him. As a child, your parents are your hero, who should provide you with everything a child needs to be successful, but because he had died, she was left on her own with this battle inside her. She hated her father for being a Nazi and torturing the Jews. The speaker was stuck in her past, and her father had created a generation rut, making another generation of evil. Children always search for acceptance and approval from their parents, yet the speaker was only given the voice of her father within her head. She blamed him for the evil within herself, and at the age of twenty, she tried to commit suicide to kill the part of him in her. Unsuccessful in her attempt, she was pulled from the sack and glued back together, never being completely full again. At this time, she had an epiphany: She needed to find a husband. One who thoroughly resembled her father, down to the “love of the rack and screw.” At this time, she was no longer a victim and converted to the predator. She modeled her husband after her father so that she could then, essentially, murder her father finally. Therefore, she had turned into her father.