Devil's Bait and Morphology of the Hit

Devil’s Bait:

“Her chin and cheeks show sores covered with pancake makeup… ‘I’ve messed with a part of my chin,’ she confesses. ‘It’s almost like trying to pull out a piece of glass.’ Her chin looks like something raw and reddish has been chalked with beige powder… She says she’s been finding it harder and harder to leave her house. She’s too embarrassed by her face. I tell her I don’t think her face is anything to be embarrassed about. ‘It’s harder when it’s your own body,’ I add awkwardly. ‘I know that’” (Jamison 36-37).

Society teaches people that any “imperfection” on your face or body makes you unworthy of being part of society. Anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into the cookie-cutter ideals of society gets put down. This idea impacted Kendra so much that the felt embarrassed to show her face in public. A disease that doctors tell her she made up makes her actions out of her control, and she feel ashamed to show her face because of how her face ends up looking.

I chose this quote because I had the same sort of thing happen to me, where I felt ashamed to show my face because of scarring that I had on my face. I ended up getting a huge wound on my chin from an accident while on vacation, and the wound (and later, scar) covered most of my chin. I would try my hardest to cover it with make-up, but at first, it wouldn’t do anything. Now, there are bumps and scarring, but it isn’t noticeable. It took a lot of courage for me to go out at first because of the wound, and now I’ve realized that others didn’t care. It became a big deal for me because it was on my face and I saw myself as an outcast, without seeing what others thought.

Morphology of the Hit:

“They saw me right off and knew what I needed. They’d been in fights. This kind of injury wasn’t anything new. They gave me wet rags, ice, a beer. I kept putting all three against my face, very gently. I wasn’t sure if my nose was loose enough to push out of place. I couldn’t even look them in the eye. I was ashamed. I wouldn’t be able to explain this properly to anyone” (Jamison 73).

Society teaches people, or rather women, to feel ashamed after getting into a fight or after getting hurt. Even when she knew that those men in the bar experienced the same things, she felt ashamed to face them because society told her that her getting attacked should be something that she feels ashamed of. She shouldn’t have to carry the burden of that attack and I think that there are a lot of things that people get impacted by, that they shouldn’t. People shouldn’t have to feel ashamed of the actions of others, especially if those actions were against them.

I picked this quote because it shows how different men and women are regarded. The whole story does, but this part shows how women see themselves as different as well. How women see that they shouldn’t be in fights, shouldn’t be hurt, whether it is their fault or not.