Lucy's Voice Through a Glimpse of Her Diary

Dear Diary,

The inevitable has occured. A part of me knew that it would happen sooner or later, I just didn't know that David would be present at that time. Now that it has happened, it is much harder to cope with than I have imagined... But I didn't know that they could do it with such hatred. It was shocking yet terrifying at the same time. I am just glad that David and I are both still alive. After what happened though, I feel as if they have killed me. I just feel... hollow, empty. Lately, I would simply wake up and live my life as if I was dead. And yet, a part of me is very much afraid that they will come back and do it again, and again, and again...

David keeps insisting that I should call the police. He just doesn't understand. I know that he is concerned, but it is simply a price I have to pay to live on this land. He is naive to think that a white woman could live peacefully in Africa among its people. He also thinks that I should return to Holland. But if I do, then that would make me a coward. To them, it would appear as if I am fleeing. I just hope that David will let me handle this on my own, my way. It is afterall my problem, my home, my life.

-*-

Not knowing who to confide her most personal thoughts and feelings, I decided to give Lucy a voice through a diary entry. Her diary entry confirms everything she tells her father in the novel. The diary entry confirms of her fear of their return, her inistence that her father doesn't understand because "you [he] can't," that she feels as if she is "a dead person," and that she believes that "they will come back for" her because she things that "[t]hey see themselves as debt collectors" or something of the sort for she needs to pay a certain price in order to live in Africa (157, 161, 158). The diary also provides how Lucy is highly aware of her position as a woman of European decent living in Africa. She understands her situation perfectly and knows what she needs to do to in order to carry on with the life she has created for herself in Africa. If she follows her father's suggestion to return to Holland, then the efforts she has put into the life that she has created will all be for nothing. Moreover, she understands that if she leaves, then that is exactly what the men would have wanted: to drive her away because it was their territory. Near the end, I used the possessive word "my" to emphasize how Lucy feels that the incident is something which she must deal with on her own, especially due to his lack of understanding the situation fully. Simultaneously, it also emphasized Lucy's indepenedence and maturity that David does not acknowledge in the story. As a father, he shall forever see Lucy as his daughter that he should protect. This can easily skew the story for the reader. Thus, I also made an effort to find a balance between giving Lucy the maturity of a woman but also a lack of vocabulary as an individual who lives in the countryside--for a range of vocabulary is useless and unneccessary for her.