Who's fault is it?

Rape. A single word that has an impeccable amount of power behind it. There are sevral questions that revolve around that word when brought up. Who's fault was it? Was it implied in anyway? Was the person lead on by the alleged victim? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Are you lying?

 Pecola was raped by her father and when she told her mother about it her mother did not believe her. She did not want to hear that her daughter was raped by her husband. She thought that Pecola was lying to her. Even when the neighborhood was talking about her one woman said that she carried the blame. She did not think that Pecola was barely eleven and would not think to have sex with her father. She did not think that her father raped her she felt as though this girl had something to do with it that she was willing. Pecola's own mother probably thought that she had something to do with her rape too and that is why she beat her. Pecola does not even called her own mother mom or mother or mama she calls her by her last name Mrs. Breedlove which shows the detachment. There are so many rapes that happen and the woman is looked at. Some how some way it is her fault. She cannot just be a victim. The way she dressed, or looked, or even conversations with him had to have had some kind of underlying meaning. A woman cannot just have been abused; no such thing. Adrienne Rich's poem Rape touches on this problem. She writes lines such as "you are guilty of the crime of having been forced". This goes to show how society puts the blame on women and make it seem as though it is her fault even when  it is not. They are always able to turn it back on the womaeven though she is the victim in the situation. Rich even goes on to say how it was "what you secretly wanted" trying to say that people think that the girls lead the man on and they secretly wanted the man to do it and they liked it. Its similar to when Pecola is talking to her imaginary friend and the friend brings up how Cholly raped her a second time asking if she likes it that time nad began to infer that she wanted it. However, it is not true Pecola did not want her father to rape her she actually became extremely gaurded once the friend brought it up and began to deny it. Pecola was left behind to bear the burden of  being raped and pregnant ;while her father ran away and escpaed society's disapproving eye.