Domestic violence: a victim's emotional paralysis mistaken for acceptance in Black and Blue (1998)
This chapter investigates the harmful consequences of limiting domestic violence crimes to only include physical abuse or threats of physical harm. Focussing on additional complexities that involve verbal manipulation, financial coercion, threats about the children, isolation, and victim blaming, th...
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Law, literature, and violence against women
Year: 2025, Pages: 42-65 |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Summary: | This chapter investigates the harmful consequences of limiting domestic violence crimes to only include physical abuse or threats of physical harm. Focussing on additional complexities that involve verbal manipulation, financial coercion, threats about the children, isolation, and victim blaming, this chapter examines the severity of hopelessness a victim faces in Anna Quindlen's novel Black and Blue (1998). It demonstrates that a victim's indecision to leave does not correlate to her mental instability because she “lets the violence happen” or her propensity to lie about the seriousness of the abuse. Instead, many victims suffer from longstanding psychological trauma that causes them to remain physically and mentally “frozen” and trapped in the privacy of their home with the abuser. Although the victim in Black and Blue eventually leaves her perpetrator and goes into hiding, the novel provides an example of a legal system that still fails to protect her and many other victims who suffer from this form of violence. |
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| ISBN: | 9781032301389 |
