Low Visibility | Analytical essay

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Summary
Analytical essay

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Uddrag
When you never have been the victim of violence in a domestic relationship, it can be easy to ask “Why do they not leave?”.

The victim is often extremely manipulated by their partner, which makes it difficult to put their foot down because of the uncertainty about how the partner would react.

Margaret Murphy concentrates precisely on this taboo in her short story “Low Visibility”, which follows the oppressed woman Laura, who gets the courage to beat the oppression.

As mentioned above, the short story focuses on the abusive relationship between Laura and John. However, it occurs to be a parallel story with riots on the street, which happens in chronological order.

At the beginning of the short story, the riots are shown in their TV, which considers being parallel to Laura and John’s conflicts at home; “She wishes she could protest, but has forgotten how” (p. 1, l. 15).

The quote highlights Laura’s condition of being oppressed, as she does not know how to protest against her husband anymore, while the crowd is protesting on the streets. Consequently, Laura is perceived as an anxious and withdrawn woman as “Every muscle in her body trembles with the effort of keeping still” (p. 1, l. 16), so John does not hurt her.

Since Laura once was a joyful woman, it is conspicuous that John has been able to make her completely the opposite by being violent but also by abusing her verbally with insults such as “vermin” (p. 1, l. 32) and “twitchy cow” (p. 3, l. 86).

Laura describes John as selfish and she has nearly become invisible towards him since John does not see her:

“John stares in her direction, as if trying to locate the source of the sound, but he sees no more than a shimmer of something against the orange glow beyond the curtains.” (p. 3, l. 101- 103).

Accordingly, the title ‘Low Visibility’ refers to Laura’s condition, as a result of John only seeing a shimmer of her. Laura’s visibility is remarkably low due to the slaps and shoves which “[..] reshaped her, moulding her into something less distinct, more insubstantial.” (p. 1, l. 29-30)

However, Laura uses the invisibility to protect herself against John, because by being restrained and silent, he will only abuse her to a certain extent.