Prompt 3

Article Link: http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article%2F2012%2F10%2F17%2Faccount-sexual-assault-amherst-college#.UH9BNGar7sg.facebook

                                                         Prompt 3

During my readings of Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison I was continually prompted by the discussion of rape. Although I have never been personally raped, I know that the statistics for women being raped, especially in college, is very high. Last year I came across an article about a girl being raped at Amherst and her process of dealing with it. I will discuss the correlation between Bone in the novel Bastard out of Carolina and Angie’s article An Account of Sexual Assault at Amherst College experiences with rape.

            After being raped both Bone and Angie became very distance from others and did not tell anyone what happened. They tried to block it from their memory and convince themselves that it hadn’t happened; that it couldn’t have happened (Epifano). Angie participated in many extracurricular activities to keep her mind off of it and Bone tried to convince herself that he (Daddy Glen) had never held her tight to his hips and pretended it had all been a bad dream that would never come back (Allison,142). Neither of these tactics ended up working for them and began to affect their everyday lives. When the raping did come back to their memory, or happen again in Bone’s case, they felt ashamed of themselves and that it was their fault that it had happened. When Angie thought back to the raping she thought to herself, “If I had been stronger…If I wasn’t such a failure…This is all my fault, I really am just a broken, polluted piece of shit…” (Epifano). Bone also had shameful feelings about being raped because she did not want to hurt her Momma. She thought if she could hide that Daddy Glen was raping her then everything would be okay. During Bone’s raping’s she felt she was “more terrified of hurting [Momma] than of anything that might happen to herself, [she] would work as hard as [Daddy Glen] did to make sure [Momma] never knew”(Allison, 118).

              

                  Another shocking discovery from reading this article is how Angie was treated after she had reported it to the school. According to Amherst’s bylaws, “Rapist’s are given less punishment than students caught stealing. Survivors are often forced to take time off, while rapists are allowed to stay on campus. If a rapist is about to graduate, their punishment is often that they receive their diploma two years late.”(Epifano). The Dean of Amherst as well as other faculty members did not treat Angie with the respect and passion that she deserved; they treated her as a mental case, encouraging that the rape was her fault. Similarly to Angie’s experience, Bone’s mother ignored the situation of her daughter being raped. She excused his mistakes as Daddy Glens love for Bone and indirectly put the blame on Bone asking her why she did that, why she had to make Daddy Glen so mad (Allison, 234).

                                                   "Are you sure it was rape? He seems to 

                                                    think it was a little more complicated"

                                                            - Amherst College Administrator 

              Both of these examples convey how hard it is for a woman to overcome being sexually assaulted and the negative impact it makes on the rest of their lives. Angie and Bone are both ashamed of what has happened and feel they are responsible for it happening to them. I believe that both this novel and this article express how deeply women’s self-assurance and self-esteem are shattered when they are taken advantaged of. This article also displays how individuals do not support the survivor as one would think they would. In both the novel and the article it is clearly exemplified that the faculty of Amherst and Bone’s mother, people who should be advocating for their safety, shy away from the situation and promote silence. Although this book was very difficult to read because of its authentic experiences, I feel it is important to be aware and acknowledge that these situations are not just in novels, but are very really and happen to many women across the country and across the world. 

                                             "You never took your case to trial, so you 
                                               don't actually count as a rape survivor "
                                                             - Amherst Dean