Tony Covington

Ms. Reid

English 239

October 9, 2020

Blinded by the love

When thinking about love, you think of picnics, family, and marriage. Most people are

familiar with the saying, “love your loved one unconditionally.” In the book Bastard out of

Carolina written by Dorthy Allison she mentions a very visual story about a family. The story

follows between a little girl and her family and a man coming into the family to try and make it

complete. Over the time, the little girl was telling us about her mother’s story, the story was

based off her own life. She dedicated the whole story to her mom, to show the kind of stuff her

mom went through and was so blinded by the love of this man that she could not see what was

wrong with this man. In the Bastard out of Carolina, Allison puts together this domestic story

and how a man could break a woman down but still find a way to be strong at heart. In the

book it was a lot of toxic, and poverty things happening.

I have seen it all when it comes to this type of love, I have actually witnessed it firsthand

also. Love can make a person blind, the person that is blinded would not be able to see

anything wrong with their lover’s actions. But other than that, the man was so abusive to the

family that it was sick, where I’m from, we say, if you hit a woman your no longer considered a

man. When reading other articles about the abuse of women, I find it very sad that it is a lot of

men out here doing it. Domestic violence is the most common form of violence against women.
It affects women across the life span from sex selective abortion of female fetuses to forced

suicide and abuse, and is evident, to some degree, in every society in the world (Ravneet Kaur

and Suneela Garg). With this being said, realizing that this is the most common form of

violence. I realize that this is happening every day to a lot of women and I do not know how the

women can stand it because they do not deserve the abuse and some cases sexual abuse they

go through.

When people think of abuse, its so much going through they head, because it is a lot of

ways to abuse someone, especially women. In the story, Bastard out of Carolina, Allison

mentions that the woman’s husband was a nice person at first. He never showed no bad blood,

he was all fun and games at the beginning. But once the moms open her heart more and the

get married, things takes a turn for the worst. Not mention they was living in poverty and the

women worked two jobs to provide for the family. But when she opened her heart more he

started to abuse her, physically. But she was so blinded on how much she loved him it didn’t

seem to bother her. But he even abused her children at one point. She didn’t do nothing at all,

she didn’t believe the children when they tried to tell her about it. It was like she just wiped it

off and pushed it to the side. Women were always considered weak, vulnerable and in a

position to be exploited. Violence has long been accepted as something that happens to

women. (Ravneet Kaur and Suneela Garg). With the article saying this, you think to yourself,

why don’t women just stand up for they self? But its harder than that to a woman because in

they head they can not possibly do anything to a man that’s really strong or capable with

anything. In their mind they are scared and probably thing their alone with no help.
 Allison mentions rape in the story, further throughout the story though. Rape is so

messed up, I can not even begin to imagine what the people go through when something like

that happens to them. In the book Bastard out of Carolina, Allison mother had to kids, but the

one time the man sexually assaulted one of them was when her mother was pregnant with his

child, she was in the hospital and he decided that he was going to touch all over one of the girls,

while she was going in to labor inside of the hospital. He touched all on her while she said that

she was just sitting there scared to even talk or say anything to him, but she knew it was wrong.

She said it was not something she wanted to do but he had a pretty tight grip on her and he

was trying to make it seemed like he cared by rocking back and forth saying, “it will be okay.”

This girl was only a kid, but once he was done, she got back in her spot in the car, and could

only think about the horrific image of what just happen. She was even scared to look at him in

the eye. After that she told her mother, she did not believe her. She was blind by the love she

had for him, which is sad because her daughter must live with that bad memory forever.

Conservative estimates of sexual assault prevalence suggest that 25 percent of American

women have experienced sexual assault, including rape (Antonia Abbey, Ph.d., Tina Zawacki,

M.A., Philip O. Buck, M.A., A. Monique Clinton, M.A., and Pam McAuslan, Ph.d.).

Sexual assault of adolescent and adult women has been called a silent epidemic,

because it occurs at high rates yet is rarely reported to the authorities (Koss 1998). Selecting

these articles, I give the proof of the lack of justice for women that are getting rapped. Because

even when the women report the actions going on with these men, it still seems that there are

not getting any help or justice from them. So, I can probably see why they give up, and just sit

in silence with things like this go down. He went limp and came down on me, rag-loose and panting.
His hand dropped from my mouth, but the urge to scream was gone. Blood and juice, his sweat and

mine, my blood, all over my neck and all down my thighs, the sticky stink of him between my burning

legs. How had it all happened so fast (Allison, 286)? This tells you that women are just plain out scared,

they way things could happen this fast and there would not be a soul around to help you out with the

situation, or even to comfort you. This action right here could honestly break a person mentally and

physically, and this person could never learn how to let someone in again or even to love someone else

again.

They way abuse gives the book a lot of meaning because it seems as that is what really is going

on in the book. I say that because it happens in multiple sections of the book. It was really hard to even

look past the sexual and domestic abuse going on during reading the book. Some readers who have read

the book say that some people should not read this book because some can not handle it. This book is

very interesting and graphical, if you have the right imagination or picture in your head. This book could

be very disturbing. I wouldn’t say that could be the only topic about this book neither though because it

also had stuff to deal with, such as them going through poverty, having to rob places for food, just to get

a decent meal out of it. It’s a lot of words and topics you could go over with this book but my main focus

was to talk about the abuse that was going on and still goes on till this day all over the world. No matter

what type of abuse it is. It could verbal, physical, and mental, they all still can affect one person and

could drive them crazy. Children who experience physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or neglect

are at least two to three times more likely to attempt suicide in later life, according to the

largest research review carried out of the topic (University of Manchester, 2019).

What I think this book really symbolizes is growth in women, Allison told this story for her

mother and based it off her mother because I feel like she wants to let everyone know how strong her

mother is. Not only just that she probably wants female readers or even male readers that have been
through this that it is possible to overcome the fears that is going on in their head and that eventually

everything would be okay. My eyes were dry, the night a blanket that covered me. I wasn't old. I would

be thirteen in a few weeks. I was already who I was going to be. I tucked the envelope inside my pocket.

When Raylene came to me, I let her touch my shoulder, let my head tilt to lean against her, trusting her

arm and her love. I was who I was going to be, someone like her, like Mama, a Boatwright woman. I

wrapped my fingers in Raylene's and watched the night close in around us (Allison 309). This shows the

relaxation of her mind, it shows that she is well overwhelming and knows that she will see brighter days

ahead. Just because someone is abuse, does not make them any different. It actually makes them

stronger than some.

Antonia Abbey, Ph.d., Tina Zawacki, M.A., Philip O. Buck, M.A., A. Monique Clinton, M.A., and

Pam McAuslan, Ph.d: Alcohol and Sexual Assault: Alcohol Res Health 2010.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4484576/

Allison, Dorthy. The Bastard out of Carolina. New York: Published by the Penguin Group

University of Manchester: Child abuse linked to risk of suicide in later life. Science daily:
January 9, 2019