While They Slept Part 5

One of the most important topics of this book is how to deal with an emotional trauma. Jody, the sister that survives her parent's murders at the hand of her brother is the prime example of this. She is comforted by Connie, a director of the newly formed Victim's assistance office. She started this because of the horrible experience she had when her grandfather was murdered. She and her husband supposedly had to "clean up the blood and brain matter spattered over his cabin"(206). It is absolutely disgusting that the relatives of the crime victim had to do such a disgusting job. They were obviously barely getting over the brutal murder, and then had to go and see the grisly remains, and clean it up themselves. This may tarnish the memory of her grandfather forever. This also shows in how Jody reacts. She doesn't become the emotional dramatic girl, instead is "but I never sense I'm observing her or experiencing her emotion, only that I'm listening to her report of them"(209). Jody seems to not be able to express how she feels, and instead relegates herself to reporting how she think she is supposed to feel. This kind of traumatic event may not be able to expressed in words.
It's also interesting to see how she described the history of parricide. While initially dismissed as a crime perpetrated by horrible children that had no use in society, it is now being seen for what it is in some cases. Paul Mones, an expert, says this "Courts are finally waking up to the problem. Kids just don't take these actions unless something is very, very wrong"(qtd. on 219). Obviously murder in any case is an evil crime that should be avoided at all costs. Sometimes, however, there appears to cases where it is easy to identify with the abused child. This is closely related to Billy, who as we have already seen, was abused throughtout his child. One of his most profound quotes was that he "didn't really expect his father and mother to stay dead"(qtd. on 222). He had been a failure his whole life, why would he expect this event to succeed? His father and mother had so ingrained in him that they would always be better than him, that I'm sure a small part of him would believe they would have some master plan to come back to life and put him in his place.