Analyse af Patricia Highsmiths novelle 'The Victim'

‘The Victim’ is a short story, written by the American writer Patricia Highsmith, and is from her collection of short stories titled ‘Little Tales of Misogyny’ from 1974. The story revolves around the pubescent girl Cathy, whom attracts a lot of attention, first from boys, then older men because she dresses provocatively and wears a lot of makeup. Her father acknowledges the problem, while her mother dismisses it as being completely normal. Her father, though, acknowledging this situation, blames it on Cathy, and when she is hurt by the boys as her school he says it’s her own fault for dressing the way she does. An interesting paragraph in the story, right about the time when this is happening, is when her father is musing about his daughter’s appearance: “But he had to admit that Cathy looked like fair game, a pushover to any stupid adolescent boy.” this gives us an insight in the father’s mind-set. Instead of putting the blame on the boys that obviously hurt his daughter, he blames her because she looks a certain way. From a feminist point of view, this can be viewed as an underlying misogynist behaviour that is exhibited when dealing with the question of whose fault rape really is.