I would first like to mention that the blog situation is already helping me uncover themes that I was having a hard time putting my finger on. The two stories that Stood out the most to me were "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" by Joyce Carol Oates, and "Revelation" by Flannery O'Conner.
In "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" we are told about the horrific experience of a young girl who was abducted for a period of eight days. The narrator seems to be reliable and starts off with explaining how normal she is, just like any other girl at her high school. How she was abducted, but also how it could happen to anyone. she compares her experience to situations that are out of our hands like a plane crash or being struck by lightning. That but with a human element. the human element is what makes this such a scary story, the fact that not only could this happen to any of our daughters, but that it indeed does happen. She begins to realize that her captor seems to be taking pity on her, giving her small morsels of food and drink, what she describes as barely enough to sustain life. Her abductor has been through this before and usually ends up suffocating his victims after he "tires of them". Interesting to me was that he knew early that he was not going to kill her, saying "I don't know why yet that you have been spared". She questions what makes her different than the other victims. She believes that she looks old for her age and when abducted she was mistaken for an older girl. That he only noticed how young she was after a few days of emaciation have set in, revealing her small mid-pubesent frame. He begins to break all his own rules, parading her around in his car in plain sight, even though there are signs of physical abuse all over her body and of course her blackened eye. At this time she begins to wonder if she will be noticed from the TV news reports or if she will be dismissed as a girl with a black eye who had it coming.
Also interesting to me was the transference that seems to be taking place here. the abductor and abductees seem to in some twisted way care for one another. This is not uncommon in kidnapping situations. He would carefully buckle her in the car and ask if she was OK. Meanwhile she has plenty of chances to escape but chooses not to for one reason or another. In the conclusion she makes an interesting point about how her life was most "real" for those eight days, and that everything else from then on was surreal.
posted by Michael Clark
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2 comments:
the abductor and abductees seem to in some twisted way care for one another. This is not uncommon in kidnapping situations. He would carefully buckle her in the car and ask if she was OK. Meanwhile she has plenty of chances to escape but chooses not to for one reason or another. In the conclusion she makes an interesting point about how her life was most "real" for those eight days, and that everything else from then on was surreal.
Mike what you said here really enlightened me. I did not recognize this is a weird liking for one another. But what you said here really made me like and think about the story more then i was able to before.
Hi Mike,
I also had a lot of thought about the last part of the story. The idea that those days were more real for her seems to me to mean that we often go through life and let things pass us by, but she had no choice but to live moment to moment throughout those eight days. Thanks for bringing that up!
Posted by Krista Behrends
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