Student Question
How do gender roles in Andre Dubus's "The Curse" affect Mitchell's response to trauma? What does this suggest about negative gender roles?
Quick answer:
In "The Curse," Mitchell feels shame after the rape because he is a man who could not save a woman in distress. His distress is evident in his immediate reaction and in what he says to the officers when they enter the bar. You could argue that Mitchell's shame is spurred by societal expectations, as he failed to save the young woman like the "damsel in distress" trope's prevalence tells him he should.
In "The Curse," Mitchell's response to witnessing the rape is initially one of shame. Mitchell feels shame because he was unable to stop the rape from occurring himself, and his shame manifests from a feeling of masculine duty. The trope of the "damsel in distress" fits well here as a lens of interpreting Mitchell's reaction; the Cambridge Dictionary defines the damsel in distress as "a young woman who is in trouble and needs a man's help." Were you to use the damsel in distress trope as a lens in your essay, you could make a strong argument that Mitchell's shame comes from his failure to be a hero and save the girl from being raped.
Mitchell's shame is evident in his initial reaction. In the immediate aftermath of the rape, Mitchell brings the girl her clothes and, rather than comfort her, covers her body with her clothes...
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and stays silent. After Mitchell calls 911, we learn that
He wanted to speak to her and touch her, hold a hand or press her brow, but he could not.
Later, when Mitchell is discussing the scene with Bob, Smitty, and Dave, he says aloud, "I could have stopped them, Smitty." Mitchell's silence when comforting the girl likely comes from a place of shame; because he feels that it was his obligation to save her as the only good man in the room, he cannot comfort her. You could argue that Mitchell feels complicit in her rape because he was unable to fulfill his role as the heroic savior to the damsel in distress. His brief talk with Smitty and Dave, the two police officers, could confirm this. This shame likely would not exist in Mitchell if he wasn't beholden to masculine gender roles; Smitty attempts to convince him that his shame is unnecessary by reassuring him that it's the police's job to handle violent situations, but Mitchell doesn't seem to accept this. He sees himself as a man who, in his own words, should have done something to help.
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