This section of the book was outrageous for me. I couldnt put it down after the chapter when the three men attack David and Lucy. As for what happens after that I begin to get extremely frustrated…
For starters, the way Lucy is handling being raped is really surprising me. For being a woman not interested in men or having sex with them, why is she letting it control her so much?! She states on page 158, “I think I am their territory. They have marked me. They will come back for me’. She makes this statement as though that is ok. When David suggests that they leave the farm she thinks that idea is ridiculous. I can’t understand why in the world she would ever think staying there would be a good idea. Naturally the first theorist I thought of after reading this was Gayle Rubin. At first I thought Rubin would be on Lucy’s side, but after the comment Lucy makes above I’m getting a feeling that Rubin would be outraged. To think that a woman would let a man take her over like that is really amazing me, especially in the case of rape. This connects to Rubin’s discussion about the trafficking of women. According to Rubin’s essay, “Women are given in marriage, taken in battle, exchanged for favors, sent as tribute, traded, bought, and sold…Women are transacted as slaves, serfs, and prostitutes, but also simply as women” (1673). If Lucy made that comment to Rubin I could see Rubin straightening Lucy out. She needs to be convinced of that fact that those men that raped her did not win and they she is not marked by them.
This trafficking of women also made a connection for me to Petrus. It is repeated more than once that ‘He has two wive, or a wife and a girlfriend’ (77). When I first read this I thought, well its normal for where they are. But then I thought of Rubin and how this too is connected to the trafficking of women and this idea of men having the power over women, “‘Exchange of women’ is a shorthand for expressing that the social relations of a kinship system specify that men have certain rights in their female kin, and that the women do not have the same rights either to themselves or to their male kin” (1673). Apparently Petrus has this control over his women being that it is ok for him to be with his wife for a period of time and then move to his girlfriend whenever convient. I guess in relation to Rubin’s essay Petrus has two gifts of women.
One last connection to the theorists would be David’s comment about Bev Shaw followed by Lucy saying, ‘You think Bev is part of the repressive apparatus?’ (91), which made me really happy to see the words repressive apparatus. According to Althusser, “…the state is explicitly concieved as a repressive apparatus…a ‘machine’ of repression which enables the ruling classes to ensure their domination over the working class, thus enabling the former to subject the latter to the process of surplus-value extortion” (1487). Now beyong the sharing of the words repressive apparatus, I dont really know how Bev Shaw represents the state or vice versa, but the connection between the words repressive apparatus and Althusser was enough for me.
In regards to your opening comment on why Lucy seems to be letting this experience control her, I see it as an attempt on her part to rationalize what has happened to her, in an effort to make it easier to understand and handle. It reminds me of David, and his attempts at rationalizing his situation with Melanie.
I share your confusion with how Bev Shaw ties in with a repressive apparatus. Like you, I was simply excited enough to see that phrase and have a reference point to it.
Sometimes I feel like Lucy gives up to quicky. I agree with your statment, how she says its like they mark there territory…she does make this out to be okay. I feel that she is so weak but at the same time so strong. She never ever really lets what has happened to her show through. Now we find out she’s having a baby by one of these men and now she is fully owned by them. At the same time, the rape never really seems to bother her. She takes her Father to the hospital and cares little about her own problems. I am not to sure what to think of Lucy all the time.