Violence Essay

After seventeen years of being pushed, whacked, slapped and kicked around like nothing, Paula found herself staring into the eyes of the person she’d become. She went from a strong woman, full of life, to a shrunken bruised soul barely surviving the day. The constant abuse changed Paula in the way she treated herself and the people around her. Having her confidence and self respect knocked out of her every single day, and being tormented physically and emotionally eventually changed her into thinking it was okay; she was too afraid not to. The misery that was brought out of the situation led to her excessive drinking. Many times she found herself putting a bottle of vodka in front of food for her children. The fact that she told herself she’s worthless and deserving of what she got made her invisible and contributed to the loss of her identity. She was forced to find ways to cope or escape. More often than not, her escape and solution was in the bottom of a bottle. Like the bottle, her kids would walk around empty as well, empty of food, of what should be a basic right for them to have. The amounts of money she spent on alcohol prevented her from feeding her kids- as well as herself. When thinking of her addiction, Paula says “My children have gone without food because of my drinking… But I have it under control” (Doyle 88). Her claiming that she has things under ‘control’ suggests the opposite, and proves that she’s in denial of her addiction. Although she can admit to being an alcoholic, she often falls back on empty excuses and eventually convinces herself of her own lie. She promised herself to only drink after putting Jack, her youngest son, to bed. Paula did well in keeping that promise, but cheated by setting the clock forward or sending him up early. She’d feel her skin crawl, aching for the relief that’s waiting for her inside the shed. She’d throw away the key in the garden, making it harder for herself to find. One morning she tells us “I put Jack to bed early last night” (Doyle 89). She let the craving consume her, and punished her child for it. It was too hard to ignore. Many people who are being abused turn to an addiction as a solution. For Paula, the alcohol was a break. I’m the beginning, it wasn’t meant to become an addiction. Every beating reminded her of her reality, and the alcohol could help her forget. She needed it to get through they day, and soon she needed it to mend the aching in her throat and shaking of her hands. Besides using alcohol to drown problems with, Paula tried different ways to cope with her situation. There were days when she didn’t feel anything, and days when she felt too much. She gave herself opportunities to rest, to heal. Those could also lead to opportunities of giving up. She’d lay in bed, staring into nothing, torturing herself by daydreaming of escape. Her children were always the ones to bring her back. They were the ones keeping her in place, keeping her from escaping her life. She resented them for that. Although she loved them with all her heart, she resented them for forcing her to live.
As she’d daydreamed, reminiscing of her past, she could make things up  and shape it as she wanted to. She’d catch herself once in awhile, forcing herself to stop and start over in the middle of the story. As she realizes this, she says “That’s the thing about memories. I can’t pick and choose them” (Doyle 197). As much as she tries to remember the good, she wants to stay true to herself. She often stops mid sentence and recalls the memory again from a negative view. The story telling was her way of coping. The same action was repeated as she remembered events of her childhood. She would always carry the positive view, as her sister told her negative version of it. If she can convince herself that she was happy, and that things weren’t so bad it would be easier for her to move past them. However, reality often drags her back into the darkness known as her reality. Her mind is desperately running from her past. These memories and daydreams may have been comforting, but in reality Paula was shrinking. By letting herself believe that she was worthless and deserved what she got from Charlo, she made herself smaller. Her confidence was terrible and she thought of her appearance as a fifty year old woman. As her love for herself was decreasing, her love for Charlo was increasing. By hating and thinking less of herself she loved Charlo all the more. She became invisible, her identity was beaten out of her. As she sits, filled with self loathing, Paula says “There were days when I didn’t exist; he saw through me and walked around me” (Doyle 178). She lets him treat her however he wants to, and eventually believes she deserves it. The days when she didn’t exist where events when Charlo treated her as if she were invisible. He beat her into a state of mind where his approval defines her; she exists because he lets her. She could punish herself the worst, she could be her own bully. As she desperately tries to think of reasons for Charlo’s unforgivable behavior, she scolds herself “Why didn’t you make the effort, Paula?” (Doyle 171). Even though he put her through unthinkable things, she still blames herself. It shows how weak she’s become, how much she’s shrunken. She accepts the fact that she is being punished for something she’s doing wrong, because it’s the only way she can grasp the fact that she is being abused by her husband. He’s supposed to love her, but how can he love someone useless? She continues these thoughts by saying “I was hopeless and stupid, good only for sex, and I wasn’t even very good at that” (Doyle 177). She feels that she could’ve been better somehow, and maybe he’d changed then. Charlo has never had a reason to hit her, and whatever she could have done differently wouldn’t have changed what was to come.
All this violence changed the way Paula treated herself and her children. The abuse led to a drinking problem which caused lack of judgement when handling her kids. They suffered from less food so that she could afford another bottle. Charlo brought forward her insecurities, and made her smaller. She saw herself as useless, and her identity was stolen from her. She could take a beating through all these years, but as soon as Charlo laid eyes on their daughter, Nicola, she had enough. This shows that even though she was too weak to stand up for herself she was strong enough to save her children. After the abuse, she became a stronger and independent person. Her weakness remained in the alcohol, but she had taught herself ways of controlling her consumption. After all those years of complete darkness and misery, she’s still in love with Charlo. That love will always exist in her, but only for the Charlo she knew before the first beating.