Blog Post for 3/11 "The Girl with The Blackened Eye"

"Nobody said a word - didn't want to get involved, I guess." 

     When I read this line my stomach dropped. I don't express my opinions about controversial topics very often because I don't find the conversation worth the grief. That being said, when I read this short story I forgot that it was fiction. I found myself angry: angry at the thought that people would not want to "get involved" when they see a girl with two black eyes because it is "none of their business". Angry at how that situation would be considered "none of their business", but if they were to see two gay men in love it would become everybody's business. The possibility that domestic violence in general is not as enraging of a topic as gay marriage: I find that to be very wrong. 

"Personality is like a flame"

     I really enjoyed this simile. I thin personalities are flames of the soul and they're completely capable of being dimmed, brightened, extinguished, tarnished, etc by other people's actions. There are days when your personality flame can be thriving and you feel confident in personality traits. "I feel aggressive today." "I feel funny today." "I feel creative today." The days that your personality is dragging: "I feel sad today." "I feel quiet today." "I feel lazy today."

"You're special. You're not like the others."

   "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" in it's entirety was a very powerful story to me. It was especially powerful because of the point of view in which it was written. Having the untold-ever-before story written by the victim herself, through her eyes, made it seem very real. It worked efficiently with the broadening of empathy throughout the story. The above quote is what I found to be most perplexing and interesting about it. I really want to understand why the abductor chose to let her survive. Why did he feel obligated to save her, but have no issue killing the others? I remembered a quote from the beginning of the story "....everyone of your privileged class"; when I read this I wondered if he was referring to her family wealth.

     As far as the narrator's character goes, I found it very interesting that she felt loyal to her abductor nearing the end of her captivity. It was strange to think that she would not want to betray his trust, but I have heard about this phenomena in my psychology classes. I think that she wanted to remain loyal to him in order to display the way she would like to be treated - "treat others how you would like to be treated" sort of manner. However, I still wonder why he viewed her as special. Did he see innocence within her? Was it purely her age? The author wrote the story with a use of description that made it possible to envision the scenario in the reader's mind, which continued the already-growing empathy of the reader for the character.