A strange lack of understanding of rape

[phoenixesl]

The second story in this collection involved a rape and the resulting revenge. The reactions of the female character who was raped did not ring anywhere close to true, in my opinion. Did anyone else consider it flat, even when written by a man (who is usually pretty insightful about behaviors) about a woman's experience?

[Connie Reader]

Well, the story itself wasn't so much focused on the rape so much as the resulting revenge.
I was raped when I was a teenager and although this is something that happens to way too many women, every experience is as different as the women it happens to. The woman in the story was focused on her reputation as a writer and not wanting to be labeled "the raped writer" and the resulting attention that would bring even if it meant she might sell more books or get more press. That seemed pretty real to me. I don't think he was trying to get deep inside her brain as far as the trauma from the rape. It seemed to me the story was more about payback and from someone who never got to confront her rapist and who chose to bury the pain, I was really invested in this story and did shed a few cathartic tears reading it.

[Pucker]

As a movie starring Charles Bronson, I think it works very well.

As a realistic depiction of the aftermath of rape . . .

not so much.

[JohnDalglish]

As a movie starring Charles Bronson, I think it works very well.

As a realistic depiction of the aftermath of rape . . .

not so much.

Hi,

Couldn't miss another opportunity to brandish your negative subjective value judgements, could you, Kid?

Half full.

Long days and pleasant nights

[Spideyman]

Exactly what Connie Reader said. That was a spot on expression of how I felt while reading the story.

[Connie Reader]

Holy moly, a made up story not accurately depicting the aftermath of a rape as you imagine it to be? crazy!

[Spooky Chick]

Although I have not been raped, and therefore have no certainty of what goes on in women's heads, I support women who have been raped (we refer to them as survivors) and whole heartedly agree with Connie that all women are individuals and react and feel and think individually. There are no rules for how to cope, and considering this was a short story with not a lot of time to explore the depth of effect rape has, I thought it was excellently written.

[Pucker]

Hi,

Couldn't miss another opportunity to brandish your negative subjective value judgements, could you, Kid?

Half full.

Long days and pleasant nights

Couldn't miss another opportunity to fill up you empty life with potshots at people who don't kneel before your idol, could you, John?

[Moderator]

You've both had your say. If you have more to say to each other about this, please do so outside of the thread. Only comments on the thread topic here from now on, please.

[Sigmund]

It was a difficult read. It made me feel her horror, pain, doubt, anger, sadness, regret, vengence, second-guessing, what-if-thinking ...all the gamut of emotions roller-coasting from second to second, situation to situation. That story was a punch to the throat. I loved it. The entire book in fact.
Just my two cents.

[GNTLGNT]

I have never been raped, nor can I begin to imagine the aftermath of such a loathsome occurance. Connie, your post was outstanding. That kind of heinous act has to devestate on so many levels, but to damn King for being "flat"? My skin literally crawled-his story nauseated me, but at the same time was a great read about a terrible subject...that's all it was, a story-and I never felt it was supposed to be a treatise on rape...I'm sorry Phoenix, I'm in the "pro" King camp here..no offense intended...

[staropeace]

I have never been raped ...but abused and beaten, yes. Not only was a victim, but, I worked with clients who went through the experience...and there is no book of etiquette on how rape victims should feel. Folks behave differently because they have different coping tools.

[Connie Reader]

It was a difficult read. It made me feel her horror, pain, doubt, anger, sadness, regret, vengence, second-guessing, what-if-thinking ...all the gamut of emotions roller-coasting from second to second, situation to situation. That story was a punch to the throat. I loved it. The entire book in fact.
Just my two cents.


a punch to the throat, good way to describe it. I felt like I was holding my breath through the whole story.

[Becks19]

I thought it was a pretty accurate description of what a woman would do "if" she didn't want to bear the stigma of being raped. I am not sure what the numbers are but, there are estimations of how many rapes go unreported per year. My Sister was raped when she was 17 and left for dead. ( pretty similar to Tess) I gave her my copy of FDNS because I felt it would be cathartic for her to read about a woman who turned the tables....She liked the book so much I haven't gotten it back.

[Haunted]

Well, the story itself wasn't so much focused on the rape so much as the resulting revenge.
I was raped when I was a teenager and although this is something that happens to way too many women, every experience is as different as the women it happens to. The woman in the story was focused on her reputation as a writer and not wanting to be labeled "the raped writer" and the resulting attention that would bring even if it meant she might sell more books or get more press. That seemed pretty real to me. I don't think he was trying to get deep inside her brain as far as the trauma from the rape. It seemed to me the story was more about payback and from someone who never got to confront her rapist and who chose to bury the pain, I was really invested in this story and did shed a few cathartic tears reading it.


I was raped when I was a teenager:love:

[Haunted]

You've both had your say. If you have more to say to each other about this, please do so outside of the thread. Only comments on the thread topic here from now on, please.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, Dear Ms. Mod.

[Haunted]

I thought it was a pretty accurate description of what a woman would do "if" she didn't want to bear the stigma of being raped. I am not sure what the numbers are but, there are estimations of how many rapes go unreported per year. My Sister was raped when she was 17 and left for dead. ( pretty similar to Tess) I gave her my copy of FDNS because I felt it would be cathartic for her to read about a woman who turned the tables....She liked the book so much I haven't gotten it back.


My Sister was raped :love:

[Haunted]

Although the lady author was brutally violated at the start this story, for me, it was that she sought revenge against the monster(s) not only for herself but for the other women/girls whose bodies she found and to prevent any further horrible acts of violence upon other women.

I am not sure whether any person, male or female, could take up a pen and describe a scene of rape that rings true without having experienced it themselves.:eyebrow:

[doc_hall81]

Never been raped here either, but i must say that story definitely played almost all of my emotions. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Let's not forget is wasn't just about the rape, also the fact that he thought she was dead. In his mind he had killed her, and he actually killed all the other women in the pipe. i just might come back at someone if they thought they killed me too.

[JayneH]

Isnt it funny how we all interprete a story .... I saw this as a woman who was totally in shock after the ordeal and after cowering and trying to cover up that it happened at all ... decided that exacting her revenge would be the only way to go forward. At the end of the story I imagined that she would only then deal with the rape itself and start her healing process.

I suppose to me it shows how good a writer is ... when I can imagine her life after the book has finished.

[truckingtiger]

Im new here, but I want to say, as a former police officer that MANY MANY cases of rape are NEVER reported for a variety of reasons...shame, guilt, fear, etc. This story was very emotional, scary, and real to me. As a man, I will never know what it feels like to be a woman and a victim of this horrendous crime, but as a person who has studied it with real victims, I can say that the author in the story acted every bit as real as if she had reported it to the police. To say that her actions weren't believable is to say that the women who are raped and dont report the crime are not victims, IMHO.

[randallFlaggfan1]

The story didn't feel flat at all. It's very emotional, gut-wrenching. Upon its conclusion, I felt as if my heart had been wrenched out. I don't think I know anyone that wouldn't be affected by everything Tess endured.

I loved Big Driver most because it's so different from Sai King's "typical" work. It really says a lot about how great he actually is.

Btw, I like what Connie Reader said about each traumatic experience differing from the next. Thank you!

[omm poppa mow mow]

I don't understand the theory and it reminds me of those who have been to war, those who did their time say, in the Nam. I've often heard people who have been in battle express the idea that no one can understand, and perhaps rightfully so, but at the same time, there seems present a kind of elitism--no, by golly, we're not going to enlighten you untouched by battle, as even by talking about the experience, we belittle it. Pass the bottle. There seems present the mind-boggling idea that the experience is somehow treasured, kept sacred on the shelf, there it is, look at it, appreciate it from a distance but don't you dare speak of it, for you are not worthy

I don't see flat. Could make a joke about her being under three hundred pounds of country meat, flat, yeah, you betcha. This guy walks up to her with this awe-shucks, fingertips in pockets, and he's big. All she can do is plead please don't kill me. Too, with his reply, (this is all make-believe so these emotions are okay, I think) I chuckled because the story at that point reminded me of Desperation--the cop, reading them their rights? All so matter-of-fact. Gosh sakes.

When she swam back into consciousness, three times, the third inside the pipe, or being pushed inside, she thought she was dead. Actually, she's not there yet, but that's where he's headed. And I love that next line, Wherefore art thou, Tom? Almost like this thread, hey? Subtitled: seeking navigational aids on what one should feel. My title, sorry. I'm trying to understand this. We all have our obsessions.

And then she starts coming out with those voices, navigational aids, and who is creating the voices? She is, isn't she? Flat? Hardly.

First time I read through this thread, I thought I read an underlying feeling, not posted, that yes, there was something off about Tess's reaction. I don't recall who, and reading it again now, I don't see what I thought I'd seen earlier. I dunno. Seems like she chooses the best option available to her at any given time--play dead.

But don't you think there's a kind of danger in presuming or suggesting that there is a "given" way one reacts or is "supposed to act" given a situation? I mean, how many of us has found themselves in some time and place thinking bad ideas for lack of a way to get out of that rut? And what happens? You pretty much start spinning your wheels? Right? Throwing mud, sinking deeper. It's not like you're overwhelmed with this idea: this too will pass. At the time, it's all you can do to keep some kind of normalcy to your life.

And then, say, years later, you reach a point, and yeah, things have passed, but at that moment you figured you were so unique, your situation so original, and damn if that old ugly cross you had to bear didn't hold a place of esteem...pass the bottle...and don't she look fine? Or maybe that's something else entirely. Another angle on the same thing.

I did like how the idea of the pipe comes into play, later, in that other story. Pipe/pigeonhole.

Too, maybe it has to do w/how Tess reacted--this coming back to that idea that there is a "normal" way to react, the idea being that if one hadn't reacted in this fashion, than any other reaction is invalid, which isn't the case, that isn't the case at all. So maybe that's why her reaction felt flat for the member who started this thread.

[bobledrew]

It's an interesting thing to think about: the ability of a writer to project him or herself into situations that are out of his or her range of experience. I am a man. I cannot give birth. Can I write about that convincingly? Maybe, maybe not. A woman cannot masturbate as men do it, because she lacks the equipment. Can she write about it? Maybe, maybe not.

I think King is like all writers in that he must imagine experiences that he hasn't had. Sometimes those experiences are "within" his possible range of experiences -- King, for example, could sexually assault a woman as Big Driver does. He possesses that capability. Sometimes, he will choose to write about things that are outside of his range of potential experiences. He could not, for example, menstruate, but wrote about it quite a bit in the DT series. When, for example, King wrote about Andy being raped in Shawshank, that is a very different thing than what happens to Tess. The power-politics of the act and the circumstances are totally unlike each other.

Then when we readers get the story, we must make some decisions. We first decide whether King as a man has the "right" to write about what happened to Tess. Can he write about rape from a female point of view (or ANYTHING from a female point of view)? Can he write about the "black experience", or is any white writer's attempt inherently racist or limited? Then, if we accept that he does have that "right" (I, for one, believe he can write about anything he pleases), then he must convince us that his writing portrays A truth. Not THE truth, but A truth of the experience. Remember Misery, when Sheldon talks about the "Can you / Did He?" game? We ask ourselves "Did he?"

It seems that for the original poster (sadly, who didn't stick around to discuss), SK didn't. Fair enough. I tend to read it that he did. Fair enough.

[JellybeanJay]

Big Driver reminded me a lot of the movie The Brave One with Jody Foster, both focus on a victims revenge after a horribly tramatic attack. I enjoyed the story a lot, I love to see the big baddies get what's coming to them!

[Manxkitti]

Every rape survivor deals with it differently. There is no right or wrong way. I dealt with mine the best I knew how.

[Homer403]

I wouldn't be surprised if un-reported rape exceeds reported rape.Not only was she raped, assaulted and violated but now feels embarrassed and possibly be humiliated during the court process.But in the non-fiction world she should have reported it rather than commit murder....

[Gazou]

The way Tess deal with the situation is probably different then what most people would do. That does not make it impossible or unbelievable. It's a thriller, its not meant to be representative of the average population. If she had gone to the police, it would not have been a very interesting story...

After reading 1922, I seem to see mental illness everywhere and my feeling is that Tess is a bit crazy. The way she makes everything "talk" would just be cute or funny in a normal setting, but here it's a bit creepy. I only read it once, so I'll have to read it more to get a more solid opinion.

[Gazou]

I never saw Jodie Foster in The Brave One, but I did see her in The Accused a long time ago, where she uses legal means to get justice for a change.

Checking about the Accused on wikipedia I noticed the rape in that movie was also in Massachusetts, in a bar called Big Dan's...

[Lina]

I agree with those of you who tell that the story is very emotional. When reading it I felt so many different emotions, I tried to imagine what could be another way of dealing with such an awful thing as rape, what would a woman feel... And I think the story has a very good way of showing all these feelings - guilt, shame, fear, emptiness inside... That must be real scary, and in fact, I was scared when reading the story... It is terrifying that such things happen in our life, and that most cases are not revealed to the police...

[jimson]

I agree with those who don't think the story was about rape and how a woman would process that trauma but about revenge and how one particular woman did. On that level it succeeded as I certainly wanted to keep reading and see the villains get what they deserved.

That didn't happen because they weren't brutally tortured and then burned alive, but hey, you can't have everything.

[btobey]

As a psychologist who works with college students, I will just echo others who have mentioned that there is no "typical" response to rape; everyone is different. Tess's reaction may have been an usual one, but King's depiction of Tess certainly rang true to me overall.