Essay Questions

Who is the antagonist of this novel based on and why doesn’t the narrator use his name?

The serial killer who is the antagonist of this story is clearly based on Ted Bundy. The trial at the center of the narrative is taken directly from the trial in which Ted Bundy was convicted of murder and assault at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. The narrator uses the real names of some people involved in the case but refers to the Bundy character only as “the Defendant.” She chooses to do this because that is how he is referenced in the transcripts recorded by the court reporter. This decision not to call him Bundy by the narrator—and not to give him a fictional name by the author—is done for the purpose of reversing history. Instead of making Bundy the central figure whose name is famous, the narrator—and author—are attempting to confine him to anonymity and transfer the focus of the murders to the victims.

Why does the narrator repeatedly call into question the public perception of Ted Bundy?

Throughout the narrative, the primary narrator—who is a fictionalized surviving witness of the sorority house attack—repeatedly denigrates Bundy’s physical appearance, intelligence, and personality. This is a concerted effort to deconstruct what she views as the myth that has grown around him over the decades. Today, Ted Bundy is almost universally viewed as the iconic portrait of the serial killer as a criminal genius trope. This is partly due to the actual events surrounding the trial in which many female “groupies” sat in the courtroom and would later gush over the killer as if he were a rock star. The media also played up Bundy’s intelligence and charm and created an overly positive view of his history as a law school student. The narrator systematically undermines this mythic view of Bundy by pointing out factual errors and inconsistencies in the subjective reportage of the past which contributed to this public misapprehension.

How does the story portray Bundy as an extreme symbol of systemic misogyny in America?

Even though the story centers on the viciously sexualized murders of young women by Bundy, he is not the only male antagonist. The narrative offers a pervasive critique of a patriarchal system that finds a way to reward men even as they are punishing them. The judge who presides over the trial comes under especially harsh light with what the narrator views as leniency toward Bundy’s behavior which seems to defy any rational explanation other than that the defendant is also a man. Even those men who try to comfort the narrator as a recovering victim of the horror she witnessed are castigated for confusing aggressive masculine pride with empathy. The underlying thematic message is that serial killers like Bundy can only exist in a misogynistic society capable of producing them in the first place.