the journey

"So long I've been away. So long I've traveled, and so far." (107)

In Joyce Carol Oates' story "The Beating," Madelyn Fleet recounts her traumatic experience with her father's beating and her own sexual assault. At first when reading this quote, I didn't think much of it, but then going back, I realized she could have said this as a result of her return from her assault at Mr. Carmichael's house. She introduces her journey before it even happens, leading the reader to foreshadow the events to come. However, she does not give a clear indication of what happens at what time. Her errant thoughts link back her trauma, because after a person experiences something traumatic, everything sort of jumbles together in their memory. So, coming back to the hospital room after being sexually assaulted and then being asked to leave the hospital room could have happened within the same sphere of time. However, the quote does serve as an understatement to what happened to her. Since she did get sexually assaulted, it does not translate to going far away on a journey. It is more like setting out for an escape to then be kidnapped and brutally assaulted, but maybe to a fourteen year old, that is the only way to deal with things.

If this story is written in the future, giving the author time to recover, why are the events still mixed up? And why does she summarize the events so nonchalantly?