Research Paper
Juliet Szabo Period 5 Firestone
After Silence
The conservative statistics from the FBI’s uniform crime reports that 1.5 million women in America are victims of rape or rape attempts during the 20-year period between 1972 and 1991. The Census Bureau’s larger number of 2.3 million rapes is in the 15-year period between 1938 and 1937. Rape is notoriously underreported. In the 1992 study conducted by the National Victim Center and the Crime Victims Research and Treatment Centers concludes that only about one out of six rapes were reported. Thus, the number of rapes between 1972 and 1991 may be closer to nine million.
Nancy Venable Raine, who wrote After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back , was one of the victims of rape. Raine was raped in October one afternoon in 1985. The stranger crept through an open back door of her apartment while she was taking out the trash. Raine’s history up until she was raped was being brought up with a Catholic religion and living in Germany as an adolescent. The rape itself happened in Boston, Massachusetts, while she was living alone in her apartment. She moved to Sausalito, California with her new husband. Prior to this marriage (and before the rape), she was married for four years. As expected, the rape affects her new marriage, as well as the people closest to her. It tears on their heartstrings as if the heartstrings are connected to Raine’s. They experience some impatience, guilt, and fear, just as Raine does as she tries to restore herself so that she can live a “normal life” again. As they try to help Raine, they try to help themselves, too. The rape caused “death” within Raine; not a sexual experience. Being consoled by people who loved her felt like a body being consoled that was no longer hers. She did not feel grateful for surviving. It was a reminder that something seeming so unkind, even cruel, could not be forgotten. Raine remembers being raped even as she takes out the trash exactly seven years later, and
After Silence
The conservative statistics from the FBI’s uniform crime reports that 1.5 million women in America are victims of rape or rape attempts during the 20-year period between 1972 and 1991. The Census Bureau’s larger number of 2.3 million rapes is in the 15-year period between 1938 and 1937. Rape is notoriously underreported. In the 1992 study conducted by the National Victim Center and the Crime Victims Research and Treatment Centers concludes that only about one out of six rapes were reported. Thus, the number of rapes between 1972 and 1991 may be closer to nine million.
Nancy Venable Raine, who wrote After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back , was one of the victims of rape. Raine was raped in October one afternoon in 1985. The stranger crept through an open back door of her apartment while she was taking out the trash. Raine’s history up until she was raped was being brought up with a Catholic religion and living in Germany as an adolescent. The rape itself happened in Boston, Massachusetts, while she was living alone in her apartment. She moved to Sausalito, California with her new husband. Prior to this marriage (and before the rape), she was married for four years. As expected, the rape affects her new marriage, as well as the people closest to her. It tears on their heartstrings as if the heartstrings are connected to Raine’s. They experience some impatience, guilt, and fear, just as Raine does as she tries to restore herself so that she can live a “normal life” again. As they try to help Raine, they try to help themselves, too. The rape caused “death” within Raine; not a sexual experience. Being consoled by people who loved her felt like a body being consoled that was no longer hers. She did not feel grateful for surviving. It was a reminder that something seeming so unkind, even cruel, could not be forgotten. Raine remembers being raped even as she takes out the trash exactly seven years later, and