Rape

Roxane Gay illuminates the deep-rooted trauma following encounters with rape that may come in unexpected contexts, and how this disturbing experience contributes to a “difficult woman’s” complexity of character. This theme is explored in the short stories “La Negra Blanca”, “Mark of Cain”, “I Will Follow You”, and “Break All the Way Down”. It is significant to note that the women in these stories were sexually assaulted in very different ways – for instance, in both “La Negra Blanca” and “I Will Follow You”, the young women were helplessly raped by despicable men who inflicted serious emotional damage, such as tying young girls to beds and having their sisters watch the rape happen. However, “Break All the Way Down” and “Mark of Cain” treads onto gray area – in these stories, wives are forced to have sex with their husbands against their will, often in highly abusive...