Dichotomy

Through her imagery and characterizations, Jackson investigates the dichotomies present within the individual, connecting good and bad to create a unified whole. This idea is extended to the external world also, with the presence of the two Souths.

In Leia’s comic book world, Violet is the innocent blonde in a yellow sundress while Violet is the cannibalistic vigilante. Their opposing natures are unified, with the innocent Violet and the destructive Violence being “two sides of a coin” (147). One cannot exist without the other and Jackson plays with the title of Leia’s comic in the final chapter, pointing out that they are the same person, namely “Violence-in-Violet” (336). Leia recognizes the good and bad in herself, connecting the fictional world to the real; “I’d drawn them that way, so I must have always known, way down in my subconscious, that they were one and the...