76 feelings verbally, as written by Briscoe, “My mother started to rant outside my
door. ‘Sweet Jesus, meek and mild, what have I done to deserve this child?’” p.4; ch.1.
The environmentalsociologicalcultural based models also analyzes the condition or environment that makes it possible for the abuse to take place.
Carmen’s family, which consists of many children to take care of, also influences Carmen’s behavior. This big family sometimes gets Carmen tired and stressed
out. When she is tired and stressed, she will express her anger and stress on Clare. It is worsened when George, Clare’s father, left the house to avoid fighting with
Carmen, making Clare Carmen’s only place to vent her frustrations. My mother now had twins and she directed her anger and frustration
towards us. Whereas before she would shout and argue with my father, she now shouted at us, punching me in the back more often than usual, each
time I went past. She slapped me in my face when I was naughty and pinched me in the chest when I was close enough to her. Briscoe, p.31;
ch.2
She chooses to express her anger and stress towards Clare because she feels that Clare is ugly and because Clare deliberately wets the bed and because she hates
her. This condition is made even worse with Clare’s attitude. Clare likes to talk
back as she defends herself from Carmen’s punishment. This condition is analyzed through interactional models between Carmen and Clare. The interaction
models are ways to analyze the action as seen from the interaction between the perpetrator and the victim. Carmen thinks that it is not polite for Clare, as a child,
77 to talk back to her parents, even when she is defending herself. However, Clare
would sometimes talk back and this irks her. Carmen says, as quoted by Briscoe, ‘“The trouble with you, Clare, is you never know when to shut up. That’s your
trouble.’” p.367; ch.24. Clare talks back because the abuses were severe and hard. That is one of
the reasons why Clare asks for justification. She wants to know why she is treated that way. On one occasion, when Clare is physically abused by Carmen, she asks
to know the reason, ‘“What have I done now? I was only coming downstairs to ask if you wanted a cup of tea and to hoover the stairs. I can go back to my
room.’” p.184; ch.11. Clare’s simple questions make Carmen angrier and cause her to abuse her daughter even more. Her action of protecting herself is also
considered a rebellion by Carmen, as quoted from the novel, “I grabbed the hand which held my hair to ease the pain. She brought the split-split stick down across
my hand. ‘Move your hand, bitch. Move your hand. Wait. Do you want to fight me? Move your hand, bitch.’” p.184-185; ch.11. This interaction between Clare
and Carmen ignites the abuse. Mersch, in MedicineNet 1996-2012 explains that the normally self-centered nature of childhood behavior clashes with the abusive
adults expectations with disastrous results p.2.
3 To Show Her Power in the House
Carmen always wants to be the boss in the house. She avoids doing house cores, even though she instructs her daughters to do the chores in turns. As for
Clare, Carmen will ask her to do some chores and she will be angrier at Clare if
78 Clare cannot perform her task perfectly. Clare’s small mistakes in doing her
chores will lead her to another one of Carmen physical punishment. As described in the previous section regarding the physical abuses done by Carmen, she could
beat Clare and hurt her with a knife just because Clare has left some feathers on the chicken.
Carmen hates Clare even more after Clare manages to take care of herself, report Eastman’s physical abuse, work to feed herself, and get herself into a
university. Carmen considers Clare’s achievements as rebellions to her. As quoted by Clare, Carmen says:
You think – Jesus Christ – Clare thinks she’s a big woman. Oh, I see. Well, there’s only one fucking big woman in this house. If you’re a
fucking big woman wait, Jesus Christ. Lord my God. Clare thinks she’s a big woman.’p.182; ch.11
Carmen despises the idea that Clare wants to be independent and no longer being under her control. This is because it would mean that she will not be a boss over
Clare any longer, and it makes her upset. Her dominance is taken over by Clare, so in order to seize it back, she abuses Clare and suppresses her freedom. When
Clare comments on things from her own perspectives, Carmen will physically abuse Clare so that Clare will not feel safe to speak for herself. When she
increases Clare’s rent payment, and Clare refuses to agree because she does not have the money, Carmen abuses her physically.
I simply did not have any spare money to pay more rent and told her so, but she just got up off the bed and punched me in the head. ‘You’ll find it,’
she said. When I repeated what my father had said – that I shouldn’t have to pay rent to her because I was still at school, she punched me again – this
time in the stomach. p.365; ch.24
79 She also presses Clare by limiting Clare’s facilities and taking Clare’s money as
rent from the salary from her part time jobs, so that Clare will not have money to take care of herself and therefore will come to beg for money to Carmen. Some of
Carmen’s ways to limit Clare’s facilities are by taking away the gas and electricity from the house, the furniture, including Clare’s bed, pillow and sheets, and
requiring Clare to pay rent to stay in the house while neglecting Clare without a penny.
After asking Clare to pay for her rent, Carmen also asks her to pay for the electricity and threatens to kick her out of the house if she does not pay, “‘If you
want to live under my roof you obey my rules,’ my mother said. ‘Otherwise you know where the door is.’” p.355; ch.23. Carmen actually knows that Clare does
not make much money – hardly enough to just take care for herself – but Carmen insists on asking Clare to pay a lot of cash because she wants Clare to realize that
Carmen is still the boss. The way she speaks also shows her power as the woman of the house. In her mind, Carmen thinks that Clare has to be a big woman by
taking care of herself, making money and paying the bills on her own. Every time she speaks to Clare, she will stress on this perception, ‘“So you are a big woman,
not a child now – and big women pay their own way.’” p.365; ch.24. After saying that, Carmen takes away Clare’s belongings left in the house and leaves
Clare with nothing. She treats her other children better than Clare to show Clare that whoever
is good in her eyes will have a better life. When all her bossy ways no longer work on Clare, because Clare still manages to take care of herself, she decides to
80 leave Clare alone and neglect her, also to teach her a lesson that her mother is still
the boss.
b. Intrinsic motivation or Primary Motives
Huffman, Vernoy and Vernoy 1997 define intrinsic motivation as the desire to perform an act for its own sake; motivation is derived from the
satisfaction arising out the behavior itself p.377. According to this theory of intrinsic motivations, the motivation is inherent in the behavior itself. It is closely
related with the personality and behavior of a character. In the previous section of ‘kinds of abuses performed by Carmen, Eastman and Georgie toward Clare’, it
has been explained that Carmen plays the biggest part in abusing Clare. She abuses Clare both physically and psychologically through her cruel words,
emotional outbursts, and aggressive behaviors. The personal character of Carmen also becomes the important cause of the
abuse. It can be analyzed through the psychodynamic or character-trait models Crosson and Tower, 2008, p.97. This model of abuse attributes the abuse to
characteristics of the abusive parents. As has been discussed in previous sections, Carmen’s character that greatly influences her abusive behaviors are her cruelty,
stinginess and bad-tempered. Her cruelty makes it easier for her to abuse Clare without feeling guilty or pitiful. Her bad-tempered makes it easy for her to lose
patience when handling Clare’s bed-wetting or when responding to Clare’s talking back when being punished. Her stingy character means she prefers to keep all her
money and belongings than spending it for nurturing Clare and therefore causing Clare to be neglected.
81 From the discussion of both Carmen’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, it
can be concluded that her primary motives or intrinsic motivation also influence the appearance of her extrinsic motivation or social motives.
2. Eastman’s Motivation to Abuse Clare
a. Extrinsic Motivation or Social Motives
Huffman, Vernoy and Vernoy 1997 define extrinsic motivation as, “the desire to perform an act because of external rewards or avoidance of punishment.
Motivation is not inherent in the behavior itself” p.377. Eastman’s Motivation is generally an extrinsic motivation or social motive. His incentive to perform the
abuse is to gain an external reward, which is Carmen’s attention. He also becomes a perpetrator to fulfill his need for aggression. This need appears in his social
interaction with Clare. It is in accordance with Worchel and Shebilske’s theory 1989, that the motives that come from learning and social interaction, includes
the needs for affiliation, aggression, and achievement are also considered as social motives p.374. The following is the discussion of Eastman’s motivation from
the frame of Eastman’s thought and behavior.
1 To Get Carmen’s Attention
When Eastman first comes to Carmen’s house, he is Ina’s boyfriend. He then has a closer relationship with Carmen. He likes being taken care of by
Carmen because Carmen treats him very well. She always prepares food and serves him well. Eastman expects to be able to get along well with Carmen.
Somehow, this actually is his motivation when first abusing Clare.
82 To study Eastman’s motivation, we can consider his thoughts as a
background for performing an action. Eastman wants to get Carmen’s attention and to be her mate. To be her mate, Eastman needs to do something that, from
Carmen’s point of view, is good. One way to do this is to be Carmen’s spy. Briscoe writes, “Now he acted as security guard, reporting all bad behaviour back
to our mother. He thought the way to stay in her good books was to report us when we did something wrong.” p.45; ch.3. Eastman learns that Carmen does
not have a good relationship with Clare. At first, he thinks that it is good to advise Clare and tell her to be good to Carmen, to listen to her and to do whatever she
says. This idea does not work well because he makes a mistake while telling Clare, and causing Clare to not want to listen and still wetting the bed. He then
gets a new idea, contrasting his first idea, in which he thinks that ganging up with Carmen and treating Clare badly is better.
Eastman sees that Carmen always underestimates and abuses Clare, so he does the same thing. He starts by reporting Clare’s mistakes or her bed wetting to
Carmen. He becomes Carmen’s spy. He then complains about Clare’s attitude to him to get Carmen’s sympathy. This idea works well on him and he becomes
Carmen’s partner in abusing Clare. After getting Carmen’s trust, he often abuses Clare both physically or psychology. In one occasion, when Carmen is verbally
abusing Clare psychologically about how ugly she is in her school picture, Carmen asks Eastman to add to the insult and Eastman happily does so, as can be
read in the psychological abuse performed by Eastman in the previous section. It
83 can be clearly seen that Eastman’s motivation in abusing Clare is to get Carmen’s
attention.
2 To Express Hate and Anger
Eastman has never been in good term with Clare. From the interactional model, which believes that the interactions between the victim and the perpetrator
or the dynamics within the family give rise to an abusive situation Crosson and Tower, 2008, p.97, the relationship between Eastman and Carmen also causes the
abuse to take place. At the beginning, Clare has clearly shown that she does not longer want to befriend with Eastman. Then, when Eastman starts reporting
Clare’s mistake to Carmen, Clare hates him even more. Clare openly expresses her dislike in front of Eastman, ‘“Yes,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone,
you stupid man? You can’t even read.’” p.131; ch.9. Her attitude infuriates Eastman. Everytime they are together, they act like cats and dogs. Eastman abuses
Clare physically and verbally, and Clare will struggle against him. In one of their fights, Clare purposely provokes Eastman to anger, “‘Go on, Eastman, why don’t
you hit me?’ I goaded him. ‘I’m going back to court anyway so I can tell them while I’m there.’”p.136; ch.9. Clare’s bravery makes Eastman angry and it gives
Eastman reasons and motivations to abuse her more. It worsens their interaction, and vice versa, their worsen interaction worsens the abuse.
b. Intrinsic Motivation or Primary Motives
Worchel and Shebilske 1989 define primary motives as, “motives which concern our biological needs, such as hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.” p.374.
84 Eastman has a motive to satisfy his sexual desire and this motive is supported by
his improper character and behavior. He dares to touch Clare’s sexual area because he has no control over himself. In this case, he finds it hard to control his
sexual desire. At first he has no intention of doing it. He comes to Clare to talk, but when he surprisingly sees Clare’s private area, he just touches it without
thinking, as can be read in sexual abuse performed by Eastman in previous section.
In the psychodynamic or character-trait models that study the character and attitude of the perpetrator Crosson Tower, 2008, p.97, Eastman’s cruelty,
rudeness and stinginess also influence his abusive action. His cruel character makes him really aggressive and easily abuse Clare without feeling sorry. He feels
satisfied after being violent and aggressive towards Clare because that way, he can express his emotions. It is in accordance with Huffman, Vernoy and Vernoy’s
statement of intrinsic motivation 1997 that “motivation is derived from the satisfaction arising out the behavior itself” p.377.
He usually does not realize it when he abuses Clare, because he has no control on himself and therefore causes Clare to have a bad physical damage,
since he has a big and strong body. He often acts spontaneously, without considering the results of his action. Sometimes, he is not even aware of his
actions until he stops and realizes what has happened. For example, on his fight with Clare, he unconsciously hits Clare’s head through a window pane. He is
shocked when realizes what he had done.
