Florida Capitol
Ted Bundy, upon whom the novel’s antagonist is based, was finally sent to death row after a conviction for multiple murders committed in and around Tallahassee, Florida. One of the narrator writers, “Denise had called it a brutalist scourge on Tallahassee, too tall and too gray, a man’s idea of modernity.” This use of visual imagery which combines aggression, lack of imagination, anatomy, and lack of color all serve to make Denise’s point that the state’s new Capitol building is a testament to patriarchal power. This description coherently aligns with the novel’s thematic undertones that a sexually psychopathic serial killer like Bundy is in part a product of the misogynistic underpinning of systemic patriarchal rule.
Witness Description
One of the narrators is a woman who was a witness to the savagery of the sorority house assault. The imagery she engages to describe the perpetrator—unidentified at that point—is pointedly insulting. “Straight and sharp, like the beak of some prehistoric killer bird. Thin lips. A small man.” In the shadowy darkness of the middle-of-the-night attack, vague imagery is all that is available. The description focuses on the nose because that was the most prominent and memorable shape. Just hours after the attack, before the sun has even risen, the narrator is already launching the entire point of the enterprise: to diminish the stature and chip away at the myth of Ted Bundy.
Protectorate
Bundy is not the only symbol of the patriarchy that comes under the sharp knife of the narrator’s use of imagery. “Brian agreed, in a ravenous, juicy way that churned my stomach…There were men who cracked their knuckles while divulging to me what they would do to The Defendant if they got the chance.” The portrayal in this passage is of “good” men who want to prove they can be protectors of women against predators like Bundy. The language, however, reveals the narrator’s disgust rather than gratitude at these displays. Brian’s visceral agreement with a notably Christian man who is expressing non-Christian treatment of the attacker is conveyed using predatory imagery. The pointlessly loud sound made by knuckles being cracked for attention cements the idea of being around men who talk big when their safety is not actually on the line.
Dress for Success
That persistent undertone in the book connecting misogyny to Bundy extends to learning lessons about how to dress for success in literally a climate of patriarchy. “I hadn’t yet met the lone female professor in law school who would teach me to layer warmly even in the swamp of summer because the thermostat in government and office buildings is set to accommodate men in wool suits.” Imagery is used effectively in this instance to convey gender-based metabolic differentiation. The heat in which men still wear wool suits to conform to absurd traditions of dressing to impress is made palpable with the comparison to the viscous muggy air covering a swamp. Wool instantly brings to mind thick, heavy material far too inappropriate for such climate conditions which, of course, demands artificially cooler air unsuitable for feminine attire palatable to enduring the natural heat.
