“i live in a world where two truths coexist; where both hell and hope live in the palm of my hand”- alice sebold (lucky). In her life Alice Sebold has lived in between the horror and beauty of all things that complete the world we know and live in. Sebold has a gift for bringing the things of the damned and dark to life. Rape and its brutality followed her everywhere and haunts every piece of work she brings to life, she flourished despite her pain but remains followed by her demons. In the memoir “lucky”, american novelist and poet Alice Sebold uses her personal experience of rape to illustrate how this trauma shapes an individual, drives an inner strength, and how it creates an obsession within the victim. Alice Sebold used her writing …show more content…
Before graduating from college, Sebold fought long and hard to bring justice to herself and to many women like her, rape victims, and women whose lives were forever changed by the pain of male aggression and forceful domination. Sebold was walking along a street just outside her college campus in syracuse when she spotted her rapist and she immediately went all the way back to the safety of her campus dorm and contacted the police to give her statement and report him. For many women who are victims of sexual abuse, seeing their rapist or abuser behind bars is not an option but Alice Sebold did not want to become another forgotten case in a filing cabinet as “closed” or “unsolved”, she wanted justice for herself and for all women like her and she was willing to do all it took to make sure she got it. However, a case study done by RAINN states that “Out of every 1000 instances of rape, only 13 cases get referred to a prosecutor, and only 7 cases will lead to a felony conviction.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Incident-Based Reporting System, 2012-2014 (2015)). After many long months of battling her case in court, with the police, and battling the personal effects it had on her as well, she was successful in having her rapist convicted and he is now serving the maximum sentence for rape and will