Curiosity is a trait that most humans possess. Curiosity allows us to delve into other’s lives and stories in hopes of learning something new. People tend to be more curious when others have extreme experiences or experiences unlike our own. Recently, Jaycee Duggard was in the news because she was kidnapped as a young girl and held hostage for 19 years. The media broadcasts her story and new updates are constantly being released. Her brutal living conditions and horrific experiences are being detailed for the world to hear. I am also guilty of extreme curiosity of cases such as Duggard’s. I constantly read the new updates to find out every detail about her life during those 19 years. I have to ask myself, why am I interested? Why is anyone interested other than her friends, family, and authorities? Why do we get the privilege of knowing the details of her life? I recently went to see an
This theory of human curiosity seems to capture the reader of What the Dead Know. The novel doesn’t seem to be extraordinary based on the mechanics of how it was written or the development of the characters. So why is it such a popular novel? The novel draws us in with the idea of a horrible crime committed against two young girls. The reader doesn’t know who committed the crime or even what the crime was, but we want desperately to find out and therefore we keep reading. We can only imagine throughout the book what has happened to Heather and Sunny and why they have disappeared. While I read it, I secretly hoped that something horrible had happened to them and that the mystery girl would tell the story of her horrific treatment, abuse, and environment.
As humans, we don’t like to see people suffer, but when they do, we want to know all the details of what happened. Sunny and Heather both went through this ordeal and suffered at the hands of their “abductor.” What the Dead Know contains a lot of characteristics of crime stories we see on the news. The novel allows us to connect with the characters and feel more involved in the events that occur. It satiates our natural human curiosity in a safe, fictional form.
Why do people want to know, other than curiosity? Is it really malicious or have people just grown numb from so much media and news trauma?
ReplyDeleteWe have to know because? Curiosity is dangerous and I think this was an interesting blog post.
I was encouraged to comment on your post after sitting and watching Nancy Grace and Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell. As heinous as those stories are, I found myself not being able to turn away and wanting every gruesome detail. I sat for about two hours straight and all I kept thinking was "Is this stuff really true" and "Thank God it's not me". Is it curiousity? Does anything that happens in this day and age really surprise people anymore? I agree with you Zandra that maybe people have grown numb. Great!
ReplyDelete"While I read it, I secretly hoped that something horrible had happened to them and that the mystery girl would tell the story of her horrific treatment, abuse, and environment."
ReplyDeleteI think you have hit it right on the nose as to why the book was popular, at the very least. people ARE fascinated by this stuff. What's weird to me is that Lippman builds this suspense only to have the resolution come out and fall flat, deflating. One (or at least this reader) is not struck with overwhelming compassion for the victim (Sunny) as we would be for, say Jaycee Duggard. Perhaps this was Lippman's purpose, to make the victim seem less pitiable. But if so, it's an awfully strange tactic. I really enjoyed your response to this piece.
I will have to chime in and agree as well. As I mentioned in an earlier response, I think L. wrote the text with our gratiously greedy selves in mind and I suppose I'm a little frustrated with her for leading me to want the story to be more grim and horrific than it actually was. But then I wonder if it was a "Gotcha" ploy. Did she want us to stand back when we finished and see ourselves in that way, to feel cruddy that we couldn't keep ourselves from reading it that way? I would like to think that the book had some level of indictment against our own prurient minds. But, I can't say for sure.
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