In The Rabbit Hutch, Gunty illustrates each one of her central characters as trapped in their own life. Throughout the novel, she consistently focuses on Blandine, often letting the other characters fall to the side as she examines how Blandine is trapped in her life and desperate to get free from herself. Through the examination of Blandine’s struggles, the feeling of entrapment displayed in the other characters becomes clearer and easier to understand.
From the moment the novel begins, it is clear that Blandine is determined to free herself from her own body and life. It’s explained that, “On a hot night in Apartment C4, Blandine Watkins exits her body. She is only eighteen years old, but she has spent most of her life wishing for this to happen” (Gunty, 1). Blandine has suffered from a sordid past that has trapped her in a body she has learned to hate. Not knowing where to turn to or what she believes, she becomes determined to learn how to exit her body and escape the feelings she’s been trapped in.
These feelings started with the lack of emotional stability throughout her childhood spent in the foster system. Blandine longed for love and support, but didn’t know where to find it until she met her music teacher, James Yager. From the beginning, the love and support James gave Blandine was tainted, but she didn’t know what it looked like to be authentically taken care of, so she continued to draw closer to him. Eventually, she learned the truth of her relationship with James. She realized that “The moment [she] felt most alive, she was nothing but a variable” (Gunty, 145).
After being failed by the only person she ever gave her trust to, Blandine becomes determined to finally free herself from the life she’s lived and body she inhabits. She abandons her relationships and pursues isolation. She begins to enthusiastically study the history of female catholic mystics, and she strives to be like them in her day to day life. She convinces herself that she is trapped in her own life and the only way to find freedom is by exiting her body.
This feeling of entrapment is displayed in an extreme way in Blandine that makes it easier to see how other characters feel trapped in their own lives too. For example, just like Blandine attempts to escape her body through the study of catholic mysticism, Moses attempts to escape his body and “disease” through covering himself in glow stick residue. Both are desperate to be freed from their past, but neither one of them knows how to do so.
In the end, there is no character in The Rabbit Hutch that is literally or physically entrapped, but each character is figuratively and emotionally trapped. Each one has a troubled past and a present filled with troubles, and each one is desperate to free themselves from the stress of it all.
Feelings of entrapment are absolutely present throughout The Rabbit Hutch. Like you said, we find similarities between Blandine and other characters. One of these characters is Joan. Both Joan and Blandine struggle with self-worth. Joan is timid and can barely speak when her supervisor addresses her about not properly deleting a comment on an obituary post. Joan’s supervisor tells her, “‘[w]e value you...[b]ut that’s not enough. You have to value yourself’’ (45). Blandine also struggles with finding value in herself. Before she meets James, many people say she is smart and unique, but “they keep her at a distance, and she returns the courtesy” (101). She never connects with someone else the way she connects with James. As their relationship grows stronger, he tells her, “[s]he is brilliant… She is exceptional and singular. Over time, he builds validation in her body like a ship in a bottle.” (104). After their affair, It crushes Blandine when James does not contact her. She ends up dropping out of Philomena, which indicates how much Blandine cares about James and how upsetting his denial of her is. At this moment, she regards James leaving her over her self-worth and capabilities. Even though she recognizes how inappropriate their relationship was and how he took advantage of her, “[h]e has appeared in her consciousness every day, every hour, since the Night” (145). It is difficult for Blandine to separate his actions from how deeply she cares about him.
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