Alice Sebold

“In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an amphitheater, a place where actors burst from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they told me I was lucky.” (Sebold 4)
Sebold’s memoir published in 1999, is an autobiography that reveals a story that revolves around a white American 18 year old who had just finished her second semester of freshman year at Syracuse University. While walking back to her dorm on the las day of school, the protagonist was raped and beaten in a park near campus. Then eventually she was left to crawl away. She reported the event to the local Police, who laconically informed her about a similar case where a young girl was murdered in the exact same location where Alice was assaulted. Being strong, she decides to go back to school starting her sophomore year, she continued with the literature program give in school as a therapeutic way to facilitate her chance of

A twisted joke? Or, is it meant as a truth? Alice answers all this doubts at the beginning of the book. In the prologue, she tells us how the officers said she should consider herself “lucky,” even though she felt the exact opposite; “they said I was lucky…But at the time, I felt I had more in common with the dead girl.” (Sebold 4) “Lucky” is written in a way that transmits the tumult an attack can cause to the community as much as it affects the victim. One other important lesson that Alice teaches us with this memoir is that everybody is responsible of their actions and decisions. Every choice people make will lead to a set of consequences; Alice gives the message by stating that no once will be held responsible for other people’s actions “No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved.” (Sebold