11/3

Today we went over more books, Shalynn had "Lucky", as two others did before. It is about a woman who was a virgin, dressed in "frumpy" clothing and was walking home through a park, a man came up behind her and raped her. She immediately told her RA at her dorm who in turn called the police and had a rape kit done. The rest of the book tells about the rest of her life as a victim. The rapist is caught and convicted in court. She later gets into alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism. She does a good job examining her new position as a rape victim, "a story to people", "an object", multiple people would say "that was their BEST FRIEND" or someone they knew "very well" even if that wasn't true. She becomes a story and not a person. The fact that she was a virgin was extremely instrumental to her life, and her case. In her own mind she was still a virgin, even though physically that wasn't true. "That person is in my world and I better relate to him"...only certain people understand her in "that world". She wanted people to say the word, it is important to say the word. A lot of people didn't want to listen to her story, but she wanted them to listen.

Jaime went next and read "Telling" (published in 1999, but raped in 80's). 29 years old, someone broke into her apartment while her husband was gone, raped her at knife point, tortured her for multiple hours. Her friend took her to the hospital, nurse told her she was the 4th rape that morning and it was only 6am. Told the story in snippets throughout the book, not just in one big story. She slept with a knife under her mattress for 20 years. She was in labor for 36 hours with her son and that gave her flashbacks to the rape. Her rapist was never caught, but she did attend a trial for a rapist in her neighborhood. Her and her husband divorced after trying to work through it for 13 years, 80% of relationships end after rape. When she would talk about her story she felt like she was "exploding" and people would just be silent. She felt like it was an emotional death for her, really watched her rhetoric "A man raped me" not "I was raped".

I also went over my story:

Nancy Raine moves to Boston, is unpacking her apartment, and goes to take the trash out. When she returns she is grabbed from behind, forced into the bedroom, and bound with duct tape. The rapist repeatedly tells her to “shut up”, forces off her clothing, and rapes her multiple times and ways. He continuously threatens to kill her, and eventually leaves her house. She calls the police, goes to the hospital for a rape kit, gives a statement. She moves in with her parents for 6 weeks while experiencing the worst of the after effect. She then returns home to Boston and is quiet about her rape for 7 years until her friend’s daughter, Kate, who knows the details and was sexually assaulted herself, tells Nancy she is not alone. Nancy now has a new life with a husband and a home, and decides to write a book in hopes that her breaking the silence would make rape less “unspeakable” and help others speak out.

What it does good:

-Explain her story in detail

-Explain why she couldn’t really move or scream because paralyzed by fear (pg 35)

-Explain after moments of attack 39-43

-Explaining how it feels to go to the hospital right after rape (pg 56, 64)

-Intertwines past and present to relate story of what happened and how it currently effects her

What it could have done better:

-Add in a few more sporadically, would go off on long tangents about facts

-Goes off on a lot of little tangents that do relate, but seem like too much information

-Doesn’t talk much about experience with police officers

We talked about what happens if the rapist is caught, and if it adds closure for the rape victim. Nancy still struggled with the fear of her rapist finding her and attacking again.