Juxtaposition In Susie's Sebold

Sebold uses Susie’s omniscient narration to show the readers Abigail’s past and present through flashbacks, so Abigail becomes a more well rounded character so that the reader can understand and empathise with her despite her adultery. This makes Abigail a dimensional character rather than someone the reader dislikes due to participating in an activity people would commonly see as sinful and morally wrong, instead Susie represents Abigail as misunderstood, lonely and desperate. This is clearly shown through the psychological point of view of Abigail which illustrates how broken she feels, and is in juxtaposition to her spatial point of view, where she is committing a sinful act with confidence and assertion.

Sebold uses triplication of …show more content…
For instance, she states ‘she needed Len to drive the dead daughter out.’ The verb ‘needed’ indicates that she requires it and its necessary for her to continue living. This represents her as almost drowning in sorrow and being unable to get herself out of it, but needing someone else sturdy enough to help her. Therefore, once again, she is seen as weak. The alliteration of the word ‘d’ is plosive, and sounds as if the words are being spat out, as if she is bitter of this ever happening to her. The noun ‘out’ indicates that she feel’s Susie is inside her.The imagery suggests Abigail is constantly thinking about Susie and is incapable of anything else therefore she has to commit acts she wouldn’t normally do to ‘drive’ her out and stop her from haunting her mind. The fact we are getting this information from Susie, who we know is not haunting her, indicates that this is all in Abigail's head, therefore also representing her as unstable and sensitive. However, this goes against the imagery above this where it states her hair is ‘in an aureole.’ This angel imagery has connotations of her innocence and purity, which is juxtaposition to the sinful act she is committing .Sebold may be using this metaphor to show that Abigail isn’t doing this to be hurtful, but only to escape her problems because she is too weak to deal with it by herself and feel trapped with her own family. This links to the metaphor of being ‘bottled up for years behind that wall.’ However, ’wall’ is not impenetrable and foreshadows that later she can express herself with her family, and not keep it ‘sealed’