Papers On Lucky By Alice Sebold

Lucky, by Alice Sebold, is a memoir that sheds light on the experience where Alice was attacked and raped as a college freshman at Syracuse University. She tells her story to show not only how her life was changed afterwards, but how the trauma also affected her friends, family, and peers (Sebold, 2017). More importantly, she tells her story to bring awareness to the topic of sexual assault. Personally, this is the most important aspect of the memoir because Alice shows her readers that, even though it felt as if it did at first, such a horrific act does not define or make a survivor any less worthy of the person they were beforehand. In the United States alone, there are about 22 million women who have survived sexual assault (Munro-Kramer,

M. L., Dulin, A. C., & Gaither, C. 2017).
After reading this memoir, one could imply that Alice is not mentally healthy. A diagnosis that can be made is that Alice has post-traumatic stress disorder. This diagnosis comes from the fact that she was raped and beaten while walking alone through a park at midnight. Her virginity was forcefully taken from her and she complied to her perpetrator out of fear of being killed. After this experience, when picking up her sister from University of Pennsylvania, Alice becomes anxious when her and her mother are driving past black men that are hanging around the streets and corners. She claims to have felt as if she had laid underneath all of them. Another reason Alice has post-traumatic stress disorder is that any sexual activity she attempts to have afterwards brings back the feelings and memories of the rape. She also cannot be pleasured during the sexual intercourse and has to repeatedly remind herself that her current partner is not the perpetrator. Upon her return to college, Alice turns to alcohol because it makes her feel like herself. This may be a predisposition to when, later in life, Alice uses hard drugs, such as heroin (Sebold, 2017).
Alice’s sister, Mary, and their father do not seem to have any red flags that would impose any mental illnesses that they may have. However, Alice’s mother is not mentally healthy. The diagnosis that can be made for Alice’s mother is panic disorder. One reason Alice’s mother has panic disorder is because she cannot go to public places without fear of having a panic attack. When she is having a panic attack, she massages her chest and feels as if she is dying because she cannot breathe. For Alice’s fifteenth birthday, her mother took her to New York City. During this trip, however, her mother had a panic attack. At the beginning of her panic attack, she was rocking back and forth on the train. When they arrived in the city, her panic attack was so bad that she could not even walk to the Met. She had to sit with her head between her knees because she believed she was going to throw up. When Alice persisted that they still go to the Met because they were already there, her mother could not even make it up the stairs and Alice needed help getting her mother back into the taxi cab. Her panic attack did not ease until she was finally exhausted, and by then, they had been picked up by Alice’s father (Sebold, 2017). Alice’s mother would have panic attacks anywhere from the supermarket, to outside on the sidewalk, to even in her own home. It definitely interfered with not only her life, but her children’s lives as well. This is because Alice and Mary were forced to take care of their mother when their father was away. Because of this, Alice pitied her mother, while Mary grew resentment towards her.
Unlike Alice’s friend, Lila, if I had known Alice, I think that I would have had the courage to shed light on my own sexual assault experience. This is because Alice seems to be a very strong support system when it comes to this situation. She puts all of her own emotions and effort into trying to bring justice to the survivor. Even though my experience was not as horrific as Alice’s, it is still something that feels like a weight on my shoulders or a constant linger every day. When Myra and Alice are sitting down and talking about what happened to the both of them, I felt as if I could also really relate to how they both felt. Myra was tied and beaten, while her husband was also beaten and pushed down their basement stairs during a home invasion. Even though Myra was not raped, her and Alice still connected through the fact that they both shared a traumatic experience that no one else around them could understand (Sebold, 2017).
Alice accurately portrays her own and her family’s psychopathology.

Growing up, Alice’s parents did not show much affection to each other or to their children. When Alice was a young girl, she would play “house” with Barbie and Ken where they were married and would divorce because Ken “does not touch.” Alice would beg her father to kiss her mother goodbye when he was leaving for his long trips to Spain, making a scene from the backseat of the car. Alice mentions that once on a playdate with one of her neighborhood friends, the girl told her how her mother thought Alice’s family was weird. It was at this moment that Alice recognized her family was different from others, that her parents did not kiss each other or play games with their children like other parents did. Instead, Alice’s family always locked themselves away. Her mother would stay locked away in her room, where she would throw up blood from being an alcoholic. Her father would lock himself away in his study, when he was home. Her sister would lock herself away in her room. Alice craved affection and attention so badly that she would purposely let the basset hounds run around with maxi pads so that the entire family would be chasing them around the house. Eventually, however, the dogs were caught and everyone would retreat back into their own rooms (Sebold, 2017). Another time Alice craved attention was when she and her father were visiting colleges. They stayed at a hotel overnight and Alice placed ice cubes under the covers by her father’s feet. She could not contain her laughter when he got into bed and this led to an ice-war inside their hotel room. Alice informs the reader that she had never seen her father so care-free before (Sebold, 2017). Another time Alice mentions her desire for affection from her mother is when she would lay on the couch next to her mother and slowly inch her way into her mother’s lap. She would complain of having a headache just so that her mother would rub her head, until a

few moments later and she would make Alice sit back up (Sebold, 2017).
The main problem that the Sebold family experiences throughout this book is Alice’s rape. The family does not cater to Alice’s needs, but Alice caters to their needs. For example, when Alice’s mother picks her up from school to go home after learning about the rape, Alice makes sure that she is dressed nice and appropriate, to her mother’s standards. Later, when Alice tries to vent about the details of her rape, her mother tells her that she cannot bear to listen to Alice talk about it anymore and sets up an appointment with the family therapist (Sebold, 2017). Another example is after they pick up Mary from college when she locks herself in the bathroom rather than joining the family for dinner. It is Alice that has to go to bathroom to comfort her sister about her own rape (Sebold, 2017). Lastly, Alice’s father complains about the trial being postponed because he does not want it to ruin his yearly trip to Spain. Alice really needed her parents during this critical time in her life and neither of them wanted to be there due to their own selfish reasons.
According to research, one in five women will experience some form of sexual assault during their higher education (Munro-Kramer, M. L., Dulin, A. C., & Gaither, C. 2017). One area that contributes to the Sebold’s family problem is their reactions to learning about Alice’s rape. According to Kathryn A. Branch and Tara N. Richards (2013), when a survivor reaches out to those they trust, such as friends or family, they in return may experience secondhand results. Because of this, people are not equipped with the correct resources to help a survivor. Researchers also found that when a sexual assault was disclosed, the most common reactions were feelings of anger, shock, and concern, followed by a change in their perspective of the world (Branch K. A., Richards T. N., 2013). Most participants reported that they could not believe that something so horrific had happened to someone so close to them. The Sebold’s family reactions can be compared to each type of reaction. Alice’s father was angry after he learned about the rape. When the family goes to pick up Mary from college, he makes racist comments about African-American males, calling them animals (Sebold, 2017). Alice’s mother was concerned when she learned about the rape. When she went to go pick up Alice the day after the incident had happened, her first reaction was to cry and to let her daughter know she’s here for her now (Sebold, 2017). This scene in the first chapter was the most maternal reaction Alice’s mother has throughout the entire book. Throughout the rest of the book, Alice’s mother comes off as very selfish and weak. She did not even show up to her daughter’s trial, when she needed her the most. Alice does not tell how Mary reacted to learning about the rape, but it is assumed that her point of view of the world changed. This was implied during the scene when Mary locks herself in the bathroom. I feel as if she did not know how to cope with the news. I believe the news changed her point of view because college students, especially females, are warned repeatedly about sexual assault, but it never seems like something that can actually happen.

References
Branch, K. A., Richards, T. N. (2013). The effects of receiving a rape disclosure: College friends’ stories. Violence Against Women, 19(5), 658-670. doi: 10.1177/1077801213490509
Munro-Kramer, M. L., Dulin, A. C., & Gaither, C. (2017). What survivors want: Understanding the needs of sexual assault survivors. Journal Of American College Health, 65(5), 297-305. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2017.1312409
Sebold, A. (2017). Lucky. New York, NY: Scribner. doi: 9781501171635