Rennie And The Solvent By Bodily Harm Character Analysis

Bodily Harm is encompassed within the framework of a three-week journey from Canada to St Antoine, a West Indian country that suffers not only from poverty but political instability as well. The protagonist Rennie (Renata) Wilford was born in a village and raised by her mother and other women from her family, without her father. She left Griswold in order to study in Toronto and became a journalist. In this job, she meets Jocasta who seems to be her only friend. Rennie is specialized in 'lifestyles ', describing and sometimes even making fashionable trends. She writes articles for a woman-oriented magazine called Pandora, as well as for Visor, a male-oriented magazine. While writing an article for Visor called “The Young and the Solvent”, Rennie comes close to Jake who works as a designer in a packaging company. She leads a rather normal life, having a partner, a job, and a social life, but suddenly she is diagnosed as having breast

Antoine. After that, there enters another man in Rennie’s life called Paul, and she gets involved in a love affair with him. Similarly, Rennie realizes that Paul is an immature fellow and is not very serious about their affair. Then she becomes involved in the political turmoil on the island. Rennie together with Lora ends up arrested and confined to a subterranean cell in an old fort. In the prison, she is forced to witness various scenes of violence and brutality, culminating in the sadistic beating of Lora by their prison guards. Although Rennie looks down on Lora, soon she realizes that her behavior includes an element of generosity that Rennie may have something to learn from her. Bodily Harm ends with the anticipation of Rennie’s release through the interference of Canadian diplomatic authorities, although there is some ambiguity as to whether this will, in fact, take place or is only an imagination on her