Pat Barker's Medusa

Pat Barker's story, Medusa, New Yorker, 4/8/19
 You can listen to Pat Barker read Medusa here. 
You can read Pat Barker and Cressida Leyshon discuss Trauma and Myth here

What is this story about? We talk about the fact that stories are often driven by two plots: A stranger comes to town and a hero goes on a journey. Often, the same story will contain both these plots, as this one does. 

Spoiler alert: Please don't read these notes until you have finished the story.

So, what is the story Medusa about?

-       Stranger comes to town (rapist)

-       Hero goes on a journey (narrator goes to Florence)

-       Artist/woman in crisis

-       Surviving rape

-       Male/female violence

-       Revenge

-       Greek mythology/tragedy: Our hero goes through a huge change---becomes a sort of woman/beast, as  she is transformed/transforms herself into Medusa

-       What kind of woman am I?" this story asks. "What kind of woman does it take to survive a violent act like this and still maintain her artistry?" A woman who can turn men to stone, but also, of course, a woman who loses her ability to love and be loved. 

To note:

-       First person narrator is telling us her story, you can imagine her sitting on stage, telling this to us. Important to be able to picture your first person narrator in place and space.

-       Animals are characters in story

-       Knife is a character in the story

-       Shadows are a thread in story

-        

Story of firsts: First solo exhibition, first horrible rape, first metamorphosis. "Firsts" are great subjects for fiction and creative non-fiction. ("Lasts" are also great subjects.)

Page 1: Story starts lazily enough/weather is a character, weather is foreboding; narrator points out difference between women in tight dresses and high heels and women (her) who wear jeans and trainers:

"By the time I left the cathedral it was already dark, mizzling, the kind of rain that looks like mist but drenches you in minutes. I walked quickly, head down. In the marketplace, the Friday-night bonanza was well under way, girls in tight dresses and vertiginous heels, teetering along in noisy groups, watched by boys who pretended indifference and turned back to their mates, laughing. How did girls walk in those things? I could barely manage in the heels I was wearing, and they were nowhere near as high. Mind, I don’t normally wear heels. Jeans and trainers, that’s me. Only, that afternoon I’d felt the need to make an effort, because I’d been supervising the hanging of my paintings in the Galilee Chapel. My first solo exhibition.

Page 1: Note: narrator's exhibition is about metamorphosis.

Page 1: Tension rises, stakes raised, shadows, women turning into other things within the exhibit (to protect themselves)

As I turned into Silver Street, I was hardly aware of my surroundings; I was still walking around the exhibition in my head. All recent work, all on the theme of metamorphosis. Women turning into hares, foxes, crows, cows, fish, seals, trees. I’d been looking at these paintings for so long I couldn’t see them anymore. Sometimes, when paintings first leave home, they seem a bit weak, clingy—as if all they really want to do is get back to the studio as fast as possible—but these felt different. Strong, independent, even a bit supercilious. What have we to do with you? they seemed to be asking, sitting there, smug inside their sleek black frames. A good sign, perhaps? Out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement, but it was only my own shadow flitting across the blank windows where Marks & Spencer used to be.
Was it there that I picked up a second shadow? I don’t know that I did, of course.

Page 2: Great details of look and smell of garbage, animals getting into garbage. Also, note driving rain is a character. Time slows down as narrator takes garbage out and gets rained on. Tension rises:

"Going into the kitchen, I discovered four or five plastic bags piled up by the door waiting to be taken down to the bins. I’d had a real clear-out earlier in the day, had meant to take the bags out then, but in my rush to get to the cathedral on time they’d been forgotten. Probably they could have waited till morning, but they looked unsightly and I wanted to start the following day with the sense of a new beginning. I opened the door a crack and held out my hand. Still pouring, but it would only take a minute. Picking up the bags, I elbowed the door open further and stepped out into the night.

To begin with, I couldn’t see a thing, though I caught the glint of a cat’s eyes stitched onto darkness, but then, as I moved away from the shelter of the house, the security light flicked on. Slanting silver rods of rain beat down onto the wet gravel. I opened the yard door and stepped out into the lane. As usual, the bins were full to overflowing, surrounded by a mess of eggshells, pizza crusts, foil trays with cruds of yellow curry around the rims. Something—a rat or a fox or even, perhaps, the cat I’d just seen—had ripped a bin liner open. Rain came down, gleaming in the folds of black plastic. I opened the bin lid, releasing a sudden pungent whiff of decay, and heaved the bags inside. And then, out of some absurd sense of civic duty, I picked up the pizza crusts and foil trays and stuffed them into the bin as well. The rain was heavier now. By the time I’d finished, my hair was plastered against my skull and, God, was I looking forward to that wine! I ran all the way up the yard, hurtled through the open door, and was just reaching for the bottle when I heard a sound behind me—perhaps no more than a breath—and turned back into the room

And there he was.

Page 3: Tension rises when rapist shows up

I knew I hadn’t met him before: he had pale-blue eyes, tow-colored hair, a slack, full-lipped mouth. At first, the shock of seeing him wiped my mind clean, but then I realized that he must be one of the students from No. 47, across the road. I’d taken a parcel in for them a few days ago, and they still hadn’t been round to collect it. “Have you come for the parcel?” I said.
He didn’t reply. Keeping his gaze fixed on me, he reached out with one foot and kicked the door shut.

Page 3 Tension continues to rise as rapist grabs knife and resembles an animal:

Oh, God. Of course he wasn’t one of the students; they’d have come to the front door. I had to get out—but I couldn’t get out, he was between me and the door. My eyes went to the knife block and I started edging toward it, but he got there first. And now, suddenly, there was a knife in his hand, and that changed everything. It was like another person in the room. I saw him staring at the blade and the light’s glinting on its serrated edge and his pasty, thick tongue coming out and flicking around his lips. He looked nervous, but excited, too, like a young dog that’s got a baby rabbit in its jaws and can’t work out what to do with it. He’d get there, though. He’d get there.

Page 4: Note how time slows down as narrator tries to memorize rapist's features, very specific detail makes him (tattoo) that makes him much creepier and more memorably human:

I was thinking that if I could only get into the hall I’d make a run for the front door. Since he said nothing, I grabbed two glasses, picked up the bottle, and began, inch by inch, to back away from him, around the table—very slowly, doing nothing to startle him—and into the passage. Still clutching the knife, he followed. Without even being aware of it, I’d started memorizing everything about him. Short—three or four inches shorter than me—but bulky round the chest and shoulders. He worked out. He was wearing a T-shirt a size too small, showing off his pecs—and he’d rolled up the sleeves. Tattoos on the bulging biceps—crossed swords? A torch? I couldn’t see the whole design. Right-handed, index finger stained orange, stank of cigarettes. Other smells: wet hair, peppermint, sweat. Halfway down the hall now—and it’s going all right, nearly there—smile, smile. The minute I’m level with the living-room door, I’ll run. Another step, another—

Page 4: Narrator trips and that allows him to grab her, terrifying few moments. Note that time slows down. Notice verbs and the elevated object of the knife.
I wasn’t frightened now. My mind went clear and cold. When he was finished with me—that would be the time of maximum danger. When he was ashamed and frightened, thinking about me ringing the police, how detailed my description was going to be—that was when he’d panic and use the knife. The thrashing on top of me reached a climax—and stopped. I tried to inch out from underneath him, but he raised the knife. I started prattling away, telling him I hadn’t lived here very long, didn’t know many people yet, just my housemate, Jenna, how I was looking forward to the weekend, when my parents and my brothers were coming up for my birthday. “Jack’s got a job in London and George is all the way up in Aberdeen, so this is sort of midway.”
Needless to say, none of this was true. Jenna was my best friend, but she didn’t live with me. My father was dead. I had no brothers. I was desperately trying to make myself sound less alone, less unprotected, than I really was.
Gradually, he lifted his weight off me, but even then I didn’t try to stand up. The knife, the thought of what it could do to my face, my body. He looked uncertain, nervous, but that could go either way. We stared at each other; he swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking in his throat. Spots on his neck, I noticed; none on his face. Then, outside, footsteps, voices, laughter, singing—a bunch of drunken students on their way home from the pub. Wait till they’re closer, scream for help? Risk him panicking?
The voices were louder now.
“That’s Jenna,” I said. At least one of the voices was male. “Sounds as if she’s brought Mike back with her.”
Abruptly, he pushed himself up, hesitated as the voices got nearer; the hand holding the knife had begun to shake. He looked down at me, then at the front door. They were right outside now, another few seconds and they’d be past. I shouted “Jenna!” at the top of my voice—and he turned and ran. My instinct was to follow him into the kitchen, make sure he’d gone, but instead I made myself open the front door and yell, “Hi, Jenna! Hello, Mike!” The group of students was further up the hill. I wondered afterward why I didn’t ask them for help, but it never occurred to me. My whole focus was on locking doors. I raced into the kitchen—which was empty—but he might be out there in the darkness, watching. I slammed the door shut, locked and bolted it, then ran upstairs, checking windows, pulling curtains back, looking inside cupboards. I knew that he hadn’t gone upstairs, and yet I still checked the bedrooms three times before I was satisfied. Downstairs, in the living room, I pulled the curtains back and seconds later closed them again. Closed felt claustrophobic; open, dangerously exposed. Nowhere and nothing was right.

Page 6: Art brings the narrator back to her senses, the smell of paints and turps

After I’d put my suitcase in the car, I went back into the house and climbed the stairs to the small back bedroom I used as a studio. I hadn’t painted anything since it happened, so I stood there for quite a while, breathing in the smells of oil paint and turps, then ran my fingers over the brushes lying ready on the table and told them, “I’ll be back.”

Page 7 The subtle transformation/decision to change/transform prompted by counselor:

"Erin,” she said, toward the end of another session, “you’ve got to decide whether you’re a victim or a survivor.” 

Page 7: Note how garbage and animals continue to be threads
"..bin bags I just threw out into the yard, where they rapidly became a smorgasbord for rats..."

Page 8 How is narrator affected by rape and how does she cope? She runs in a park with children, she stops painting, for a while.
I started walking, and then running, and once I’d started I couldn’t stop. I became the Forrest Gump of the local park, running round and round the neatly manicured lawns and flower beds, past the little play area where mothers pushed their children on the swings. I hated it. It wasn’t where I wanted to be. I loved wilderness; I loved the riverbanks and the disused railway lines that in summer became green tunnels; I loved the nearby beaches in Northumberland, where you could walk for miles and not meet a living soul. But I was afraid to go to any of these places. So, livid with myself, I ran round the park with small children and dogs and O.A.P.s and my own shadow rising up to meet me.
I hardly knew myself. My hair was crammed into a beanie, which I pulled down low enough to cover my eyebrows. I wrapped a scarf round my mouth and chin, wore figure-obliterating jackets, baggy tracksuit bottoms, and trainers, grunted a response if anybody spoke to me. More than once a man out walking his dog addressed me as “mate.” “Mate,” not “love.” Well, that suited me.
I don’t want to suggest that it was all grim. It wasn’t. Some mornings I woke up and thought, What’s the fuss about? I wasn’t injured. I had a carpet burn on the small of my back, a cut from the broken wineglass—nothing more serious than that. I wasn’t a young girl whose whole subsequent view of men could be darkened by one encounter. I still had a good life, didn’t I? A lot of things were going right. I’d sold eight paintings in the cathedral exhibition. Eight. I’d have been happy with two. I’d ask myself sometimes, Really, what is wrong? What’s the matter with you? The answer lay in the studio upstairs, in my brushes spread out in a fan across the table, still, after three months, unused. I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t painted, not since I was three years old and first got my chubby fingers around a brush. Now I entered a room that seemed to withdraw from me and stood, hesitating, in the doorway, like an uninvited guest, inhaling the familiar smells of oil paint and turps. Ghost smells.

Page 9 Art distracts the narrator and also gives her the idea of how to change:

There was one encounter I’d been postponing. On the afternoon of my last day, I went to the Loggia dei Lanzi and wandered from sculpture to sculpture: The Rape of the Sabine women; Menelaus holding the dead body of Patroclus; Achilles, sword raised, about to rape a Trojan girl. D. H. Lawrence saw Florence as the most phallic of cities. I wondered if he’d been standing where I was when the thought occurred to him. I lingered for a long time in front of Achilles and his terrified victim before moving on to Perseus, who, also clutching a sword, held aloft the severed head of Medusa. Her body lay discarded beneath his feet. I remembered how, as a young student, nineteen years old, I’d been enraptured by this. My reactions were a little more complicated now. For one thing, I knew the story, or at least I knew one version of the story. Medusa had been raped by the god Poseidon inside the temple of Athena, and, to punish her (oh yes, her), Athena had transformed her beautiful hair into hissing venomous snakes. The transformed Medusa could petrify—literally, petrify—anyone who looked at her. So, in order to kill her, Perseus had to use his shield as a mirror, watch her reflection, wait for the right moment—and strike. Her face under its coils of writhing snakes was beautiful, even in death. I stood and stared. I suppose I may have wondered why, in this epicenter of European culture, the rape of women should be so celebrated; but no, I don’t think I did. I simply looked. For the first time in months I lost track of my surroundings, totally absorbed.

Page 11-12 Great description of man/possible future lover, who picks her up in the museum

Twenty minutes later, sitting at a table by the Arno, I looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time. Built like a brick shithouse, as Dad would have said. Somehow the northern flatness of his vowels added to the impression of bulk. He wasn’t in the least good-looking, and I was sensitive to that: I’d just spent the past six days gazing at images of beautiful men. His nose had been broken, possibly more than once. There was a yellowing bruise around one eye and another on his cheekbone. Somebody had clouted him really hard, and quite recently, too. His hair was not only crinkly but coarse: the sort of hair that more properly belongs between the legs—but let’s not go there. Oh, God, let’s definitely not go there. A bead of tension—sexual tension—was developing between us. Deep waters, already, and the coffee had only just arrived.

I couldn’t stop looking at his bruises.

 Page 15: Moment of transformation she turns into Medusa and turns her soldier/interrogator into stone

She was back, the belligerent, bullying cow who’d walked into my life the same night as Twerp, insisting again, as she’d insisted then, that everything was my fault. No. Not having it. I reached up and tugged my hair out of its constricting band. Freed, it tumbled round my shoulders in thick springy coils, snaking halfway down my back. I ran my fingers through it, shaking my head from side to side as my scalp cooled. Then I looked in the mirror again. I needed to see my face. I needed to see the change. No more polite, reasonable, placatory smiles. Instead: this. Features contorted with rage. I barely recognized myself. And yet I did. I stared at my reflection for a long time, imprinting it on my memory, and then, slowly, let the muscles of my face relax, eased my shoulders, lifted my head. I ran my damp fingers through my hair one last time and went back into the restaurant.