In The Body Of Doris Creed Analysis

When a group of people are in a situation where something goes wrong, their natural response is to not want any fault in the situation. Humanity as a whole is striving towards perfection, and part of that is never being wrong. When characters are presented with a tragedy or a problem, most shift responsibility to other people or to the circumstances they were given. Admitting fault in the situation is usually the right thing to do, but being at fault is something that people can’t deal with because of their natural want for perfection. A good analogy is like a stream of water going down a hill: when something it placed in it’s way, it diverts to the path of least resistance. The responsibility, which is like the water, gets shifted and turned

away several times before it finally pools into the right place. However, the result is not a good one; Roads wash out and debris gets swept away. Such is the same with blame--it creates confusion, accusations, judging and suffering. In the Body Of Christopher Creed, by Carol Plum-Ucci, characters such as Mrs.

Creed and sometimes the Steepleton society as a whole, shift responsibility away from themselves and onto other people, such as Bo or

Torey. As a result, Bo gets put in a detention center and Torey is prosecuted by his friends. There are several characters in the Bible that do the same thing, as an attempt to not make God angry. Plum-Ucci uses allusions to such biblical stories and proverbs to develop the theme of how shifting responsibility results in suffering.

Plum-Ucci uses allusions to the story of Adam and Eve to help readers understand Mrs.

Creed’s blame of others and her avoidance of responsibility. When Mr. Ames, the principal of Steepleton High School, confronts Mrs. Creed about her son, she refuses to accept that she had some part in Chris’ disappearance, and instead says that it wasn’t her fault “that other children saw [her] son as an easy target"(Plum-Ucci, 175). Denial is one common response to a tragedy, and it's also one that both Adam and Eve use in Genesis. God approaches them in the garden, after they eat the forbidden fruit, and Adam immediately says "[Eve] gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate"(Gen 3:12). Eve, upon being blamed, shifts responsibility once again and says "The serpent deceived me, and I ate"(Gen 3:13). While they did actually have reason to blame the other, it’s no question that it was their own mistakes that brought on the consequence of getting exiled from the Garden of Eden, and having the ground be “Cursed because of [them]”(Gen 3:17). Just like Adam and Eve, Mrs. Creed blames others when Chris’ disappearance was partly her own doing. I think Mrs. Creed knew, maybe subconsciously, that her oppressive parenting could’ve been a factor, and her snarky and over-confident denial and criticism was just her way of avoiding responsibility for her own faults. I don’t think she would’ve been able to stand it if it was her mistakes that led her son to run away or commit suicide. If it were, than

she would have all that guilt on her conscience, so she denies it and blames people like Bo. The blame Mrs. Creed put on Bo causes him to be thrown in a detention center, and Mrs. Creed to be ridiculed and judged. There is a clear cause and effect between blame and the suffering in both the story of Adam and Eve and The Body Of Christopher Creed.