A provoking look
After Alice took shower, she dressed “in clothes that Tree and Diane had hurriedly selected from the few clothes” she had. They forgot to take her underwear, so she had to do without them. She also wore pants, which her grandmother described as “rebel pants”. She was afraid to go to the police station like that, with her face “swollen”, her “hair wet”, in her “rebel pants” and without a bra under her shirt, for she knew that the look was provocative. The irony of this situation was that a raped girl had to worry about her look, as if the way she looked could give somebody a permission to rape her.
The small things
Alice’s father was a busy man. He had a successful academic career and was to fond of Spanish literature to be truly involved in a family life. Even a status of father didn’t change the situation between him and his wife. The bitter irony was that “dogs and children were the same to him when he was working. “ They were just “small things that begged attention and needed to be put out.”
Sobered
When Alice’s mother called her husband to tell him that their younger daughter was raped, he was frightened and shocked. He just didn’t know what to do. All his life he took his children for granted and suddenly he realized how wrong he was. Later he said that he “had five shots of whiskey” and that he had “never been more sober”. The irony of this phrase indicated that the moment of realization was so overwhelming that even five shots of whiskey couldn’t deal with it.
