Sexual Abuse

In the novel, Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison explores the cycle of abuse and demonstrates how abused children grow up with self-hatred and anger, and become the source of abuse themselves. From almost the beginning of his relationship with Anney, Glen abuses Bone. His first sexual abuse of her takes place shortly after he marries her mother. At first, Anney knows that Glen is physically beating Bone. She hears, through the closed bathroom door, his first brutal attack on her. She cleans up Bone after this and subsequent beatings, all the while adamantly denying what her husband is doing. Bone’s mom may have left Glen for a while, but she always went back to him. It made me sick – and it is hard for me to understand how anyone can make the choices this particular mother makes. The biggest question I have about this book is why did none of Bone’s family ever come out and help Bone? Even after her mom knew what Glen was doing to Bone, her mother ignored the fact that her daughter was being beaten and raped. Why it is that her mom insists on putting the blame on Bone. Bone’s mother could be worried about the fact of being alone again. Glen sucks up to Anney so much to the fact that she is too blind to see what is really happening to her daughter. The story itself made me furious – which may have been Allison’s goal.