As it is seen from the quotation above, Bone does not trust Glenn anymore after he has broken her tailbone and causes her to hospitalize. However, Glenn keeps
coming to her mother asking for forgiveness and a chance to be back as a family again. Bone does not trust him, but her mother does. She really loves Glenn and
need him in her life. However, again, for the sake of Anney’s happiness Bone sacrifices her body to be a place for Glen’s pleasure as long as he does not hurt
Anne. It is no wonder that when Ruth presses the question about Glen touching Bone, she denies the abuse. It seems that even if Bone is ready to tell the truth, her
family is not ready to listen. As a result, Bone mainly keeps quiet about the abuse because she fears of losing her mother and the family’s love.
4. Independent
This characteristic of Bone can be seen from her manner. When her family is having difficulty in economy
, she goes to her aunt’s home to help her mom to get more money.
“This is good stuff, Aunt Raylene usually said. You got an eye for things, girl. I can clean and patch those clothes up. Well just soak the dishes in
bleach and give the rest of it a scrubbing. Saturday morning well put out blankets and sell it off the side of the road. You get your mama to send you
over on the weekend and Ill give you a tenth of everything we earn. Allison, 1993: 182.
She always understand her family’s condition. Other than that, when her family do not have any food left, instead of crying over the problem like her sister does, she
makes up her own imagination so she would not feel that hungry. She grows up into an independent girl who is understanding and does not need her parents to order her
to do something. Moreover, Bone has never got brand new stuffs in her life. Since she has so
many cousins much older than her, so there are many of her things are handed by her older cousins. The system in the family is keep passing the old stuffs used by
the old ones to the new generations. Bone never complains about it because she understands that her family cannot afford everything she wishes for. Even though
once she was jealous of her classmates’ new stuff like shows, books, uniform and etc. she lays on to her family condition.
I wasn’t a baby anymore, I was eight, then nine years old, growing up. In one year I went from compliant and quiet to loud and insistent,
demanding shows like the kids at school wore. I wanted the ones with little tassels behind the toes but was willing to settle for saddle oxfords. I knew
there was no chance of getting a pair of those classy little girl patent leathers with the short pointy heels. Allison, 1993: 66
5. Fantasy Prone
Bone lives with the fantasy of a loving father who can give her security and love. Early in the story, Bone reveals her desire for the absent father, and even a
made-up story would satisfy her, as it is shown on the quote below: “It wasnt even that I was so insistent on knowing anything about my missing
father. I wouldnt have minded a lie. I just wanted the story Mama would have told. What was the thing she wouldnt tell me, the first thing, the place where
she had made herself different from all her brothers and sisters and shut her
mouth on her life?” Allison, 1993:31. As the quotation states, Bone wants a fantasy to cling to, even though she knows
her real father does not even know that she exists. Like other girls suffering from a father loss, Bone suffers from the fear of abandonment as she always dreams on the
importance of a father in her life. Bone’s desperateness in needing a father’s love PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
is even projected onto her cruel and abusive stepfather, whose demonic sexual violence seems to be ignored
due to the girl’s craving for an empathic father: “I would get so angry at Daddy Glen I would grind my teeth. I would dream of
cutting his heart out, his evil raging pit-black heart. In the dream it felt good to hate him. But the horrible thing was how I felt when I was awake and wasnt
burning with anger. The worst thing in the world was the way I felt when I wanted us to be like the families in the books in the library, when I just wanted
Daddy Glen to love me like the father in Robinson Crusoe. It must have been like what he felt when he stood around his daddys house, his head hanging
down Allison, 1993:209-210.
She thinks that she would be a better person if she has a father who loves her. She is fully aware of her longing for a caring father, as she really wants Glenn to
love her. She just wonders why Glenn cannot love her and always abuses her and does horrible things to her. This is the part that shows her innocent for wanting a
father’s love. It’s not her fault that she does not have a father figure in her life. The emptiness of father’s love affects to her psychology. She starts to make an
imagination of something sexual and also masturbates by herself. “I was ashamed of myself for the things I thought about when I put my hands between my legs,
more ashamed for masturbating to the fantasy of being beaten than for being beaten in the first place. I lived in a wo
rld of shame” Allison, 1993:112. Another two evidence of her fantasy is quoted on the page of 176:
I hugged myself tightly to the tree and rocked my hips against the indifferent trunk. I imagined I was tied to the branches above and below me. Someone had
beaten me with dry sticks and put their hands in my clothes. Someone, someone, I imagined. Someone had tied me high up in the tree, gagged me and left me to
starve to death while the blackbirds pecked at my ears. I rocked and rocked, pushing my thighs into the rough bark. Below me, Reese pushed her hips into
the leaves and made grunting noises. Someone, someone, she imagined, was doing terrible exciting things to her Allison, 1993.
All the quotations mentioned prove that she is making her own Imagination that is completely different from her real life but the things she wonders would
happen to her. Those fantasies she makes are the effec ts of the emptiness of father’s
figure and to help her fulfilling that emptiness. Other than sexual fantasies, she also likes to make up a story and telling it to all of her cousins. “So every time we hitched
a ride, I made up a new horror story. The habit was so strong in me that nervous as I was, I automatically started another one” Allison, 1993:75.
B. The sexual identity constructed in Bone
