The Woman Who Walked Into Doors Response
Title: The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Author: Roddy Doyle
Text type: Novel
After reading The Woman Who Walked into Doors [1996], a depressing novel written by Roddy Doyle, my frustration is provoked after witnessing the miserable life of the main character, Paula Spencer. By making Paula narrate her life story, the author questions us readers regarding how far we would go to sacrifice ourselves and protect what we love.
Paula Spencer, our main character, whose thirty nine years of life was nothing but a misfortune. When Paula was still young, she was abused by her violent father, her classmates, and even her teachers. When she got married with Charlo, she didn’t know that she would spend days after days of seventeen years in the darkness of her husband ruthlessness. This is the reason why I was frustrated when not only the family, but the whole society that the author has depicted is rotten to the core.
In the novel, even though the neighbourhood, and even the doctor know the truth behind Paula’s battered body, not because of her ‘walk[ing] into doors’, but due to her husband, Charlo, they never helped her. I felt frustrated because Paula was turned into an invisible woman by their ignorance, they never looked into those eyes that keep howling for help. Knowing this, I cannot understand how much of a burden that this woman have to bear when she has to live in a society that raises her and then cruelly crosses her existence out of the community. This shows that the author is criticising willful ignorance, which is one of the dark side belongs to the mankind. Sometimes, we are fully aware of facts, however, we refuse to acknowledge them. It does not necessarily mean that we do not care, but we do not want to get involved. I now know that Roddy Doyle also uses this book to encourage us readers to have the courage and risk ourselves to do the right thing.
Furthermore, the book has an ending that interests me when Paula, after seventeen years living in
Author: Roddy Doyle
Text type: Novel
After reading The Woman Who Walked into Doors [1996], a depressing novel written by Roddy Doyle, my frustration is provoked after witnessing the miserable life of the main character, Paula Spencer. By making Paula narrate her life story, the author questions us readers regarding how far we would go to sacrifice ourselves and protect what we love.
Paula Spencer, our main character, whose thirty nine years of life was nothing but a misfortune. When Paula was still young, she was abused by her violent father, her classmates, and even her teachers. When she got married with Charlo, she didn’t know that she would spend days after days of seventeen years in the darkness of her husband ruthlessness. This is the reason why I was frustrated when not only the family, but the whole society that the author has depicted is rotten to the core.
In the novel, even though the neighbourhood, and even the doctor know the truth behind Paula’s battered body, not because of her ‘walk[ing] into doors’, but due to her husband, Charlo, they never helped her. I felt frustrated because Paula was turned into an invisible woman by their ignorance, they never looked into those eyes that keep howling for help. Knowing this, I cannot understand how much of a burden that this woman have to bear when she has to live in a society that raises her and then cruelly crosses her existence out of the community. This shows that the author is criticising willful ignorance, which is one of the dark side belongs to the mankind. Sometimes, we are fully aware of facts, however, we refuse to acknowledge them. It does not necessarily mean that we do not care, but we do not want to get involved. I now know that Roddy Doyle also uses this book to encourage us readers to have the courage and risk ourselves to do the right thing.
Furthermore, the book has an ending that interests me when Paula, after seventeen years living in