1.)summary: A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard is a memoir about a young girl who got kidnapped at the young age of 11 on her way to school. One day she was living with her loving mother and step father and baby sister and the next she was forced to live with this stranger who decided to keep her and brainwash her for eighteen years of her life(scary). Throughout the book, Jaycee shares a horrific experience that's difficult to even imagine and gives the reader a chance to follow the hardships that Jaycee faced for eighteen years.
2.) I believe Jaycee Dugard choice to write about her kidnapping to help with awareness and share this amazing story with the world, and how she's choosing to overcome it and make the best out of the rest of her life. it must have been hard to go through this but I'm glad she wrote it because it definitely opened a lot of eyes.
3.) My friend had this book and one day she was talking about it and it seemed interesting so I decided to read it. I am glad I picked it because it was very touching.
4.) Being that this book was in fact a memoir it was very realistic. It's the true story of a young girl who's life gotten taken away from her. Every distinct moment that she can remember is written down in words, sharing her experiences in the most personal way, available for anyone who'd like to read. It had such powerful impact.
Style
1.) The author used more of a journalistic style than anything else. She wrote from a day to day basis but instead it was written as a memoir. There are also some pages from her real journal that she kept during the eighteen years that she was kidnapped printed in the book.
2.) The author focused on lengthy descriptions of people and places because since she was writing about the past, it was important to provide as much detail to give the reader a better understanding of what she went through. This allows the reader to fully imagine where she was and who she was with during those eighteen years.
3.) As I've mentioned the tone throughout the story never seems to change and remains constant and calm, leaving the reader to really having to imagine how she must have felt.
4.) I believe that it is absolutely impossible to put the Jaycee's attitude toward the subject and and characters into words. No one will ever know what she had to go through or what those eighteen years were like. We can read her story to develop the best understanding possible, but even then is it impossible to even imagine what she must have felt like at times. I think she's grown numb to her past and her kidnapping but I don't think the pain of what happened to her will ever leave.
5.) The only resource Jaycee Dugard needed to validate this story was her own personal experience. Everything she wrote about happened TO HER, so she was really the only source that could possibly write about this story.
People
1.) The authors tone is very nonchalant and unemotional. Even when talking about things that happened that had a huge effect on her life, you couldn't really sense any emotion behind it. This shows that the author has become numb to the realization that she was kidnapped and lied to and abused for nearly two decades. She holds no anger towards the man who ruined her life nor does she blame anyone. I think that displays strength, being able to forgive someone who did something so wrong
2.)
- Jaycee Dugard: at the beginning of the book talked about her 11 year old self and how life was before she was abducted. She had a family who cared about her very much and for the most part, was a very happy little girl. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and freckles that covered her face. She had a few jealousy issues with her new baby sister who received a lot of attention from her parents. She left to school one day, without saying goodbye to her mother who forgot to say goodbye on her way to work, not thinking anything other than the fact that her mother forgot her. On her way to school, she was tased and next thing she knew was waking up in a strange car arriving at a strange place. For the next eighteen years this is where she was kept with her new "family". She was told she wasn't wanted anymore and she believed it. She lived with her abductors and even had children with him. She was very gullible and trusting, to the people who deserved that least.
- Phillip: the man who abducted Jaycee, an average looking middle aged man. You never would have imagined him to be kidnapping children by judging off of just his appearance, Jaycee explained. He proved to be extremely manipulative, selfish, sick-minded, abusive, etc. He lied to Jaycee from the beginning about why she was there, making him seem like the good guy. He would abuse her and use him for his own, personal needs and completely kept her brainwashed for eighteen years before getting caught.
- Nancy: Phillip's accomplice and girlfriend who completely adores Phillip and believes everything he tells her and does anything he wants her to. She is so blinded by Phillip's act that she has no clear understanding of what's right or wrong, she helped him kidnap Jaycee and helped keep this a secret for eighteen years. She's just as manipulative as Phillip, pretending to care about Jaycee.
3.) Jaycee is the one doing the writing, but Phillip and Nancy are the only other characters talked about enough to get an idea of how they were as people since the book was written about her time spent hidden in their backyard. Although they completely betrayed Jaycee and took her youth and childhood right out of her hands, they were the only people Jaycee felt she knew. They were the only people besides her children that she talked to or even saw for eighteen years.
More on the Characters
1.) All of the characters are described and portrayed mainly through indirect characterization
2.) Jaycee's syntax and diction remained constant throughout her story, along with her very monotone attitude towards the years of her life that she chose to share with the world.
3.) I would describe the protagonist, Jaycee Dugard, as a flat and static protagonist. A flat, static protagonist doesn't show much change throughout the story. Reading her story made me angry at times because there were moments when I felt like she could have done something. There were times when she could have gotten away if she had tried, or told someone when they brought her out into public but she never did. She remained quiet and always went back to that hidden room in the Phillip's backyard. This behavior wasn't her fault, they were her family in a very dysfunction, sick way and she knew nothing other than them and running away was a scarier thought than continuing her life the way it was. It was just discouraging because I kept hoping that she was going to change, that she would realize how wrong everything was.
4.) Usually when I finish a book, I always feel like I had just met the characters and experienced the story with them but I did not feel that way at the end of reading A Stolen Life. I felt for Jaycee the whole time I was reading and some parts really broke my heart, because no one should EVER have to go through what she went through but i never actually felt like I knew her. She displayed very little emotion in her words and made it a little more difficult to connect to her on a personal level
3.) I would describe the protagonist, Jaycee Dugard, as a flat and static protagonist. A flat, static protagonist doesn't show much change throughout the story. Reading her story made me angry at times because there were moments when I felt like she could have done something. There were times when she could have gotten away if she had tried, or told someone when they brought her out into public but she never did. She remained quiet and always went back to that hidden room in the Phillip's backyard. This behavior wasn't her fault, they were her family in a very dysfunction, sick way and she knew nothing other than them and running away was a scarier thought than continuing her life the way it was. It was just discouraging because I kept hoping that she was going to change, that she would realize how wrong everything was.
4.) Usually when I finish a book, I always feel like I had just met the characters and experienced the story with them but I did not feel that way at the end of reading A Stolen Life. I felt for Jaycee the whole time I was reading and some parts really broke my heart, because no one should EVER have to go through what she went through but i never actually felt like I knew her. She displayed very little emotion in her words and made it a little more difficult to connect to her on a personal level
My Enduring Memory
I will remember this story forever. Its hard to believe that something so terrible could really happen to a poor, innocent, eleven-year old girl who was just walking to school. It makes me so angry that there are such horrible people out there that would even consider doing such an awful thing. It makes you really start to think that you can't trust anyone. It's too scary now days to even let your child walk to school, even if it's just around the corner, because you don't know what will or can happen during those few minutes. I think the thing that bothers me the most about this story is how Jaycee's abductor, Phillip, gained Jaycee's trust and managed to keep her hidden and secluded from the rest of the world for as long as eighteen years. With his manipulation skills and never ending lies, he managed to get Jaycee to believe that her parents didn't want her and that there was nothing she could do to get help. He told her that they were her new family and that he loved her, and she eventually believed him. There was always a part of her that knew what he was doing was wrong but she never did anything to stop him or to help herself or her children. It also sickens me that she had to have his children, especially at such a young age. It tore her apart knowing that he was the father of her children and that she brought children into such a horrible living condition. She did not want her children to grow up in the living conditions that she was in. It breaks my heart that eighteen years of this poor girl's lives are nothing but painful, dysfunctional memories.
SIDE NOTE
I just want to say that this story was very touching. I have never read something like this before and its very eye opening not only for me but to the world. Its just scary to think that this can happen to anyone. You might think that your community is safe when it really isn't. If you have the chance to read this amazing story I would if I wear you. it has such powerful impact that it might change the way you think.
