The Girl With the Blackened Eye is a powerful piece of short writing. Whether or not it's true, based on true events or fictitious the heart wrenching story of a teenage girl abducted and rapped is chilling. The types of details the author Joyce Carol Oates vividly describes not only being rapped but having to witness as her abductor violently rapes other women. You get a sense that she no longer attaches herself to this world, she says "you are there, and not-there." Her body may have been present, but the essence of what made her, "her" was shelled away. 

     Her inability to escape when she had the opportunity really shows you how much her psyche was affected over this eight day period of time. That coupled with her inability to communicate her past to her current family shows that she masterfully compartmentalized her experiences.

     Details and imagery that are incorporated into a story that are pulled from real life tend to add another layer of immersion throughout the story. Things that are so real that they can't possibly be made up trick your mind into whole heartedly accepting the story.