Violence Against Women Theme Analysis

While Delaney and Kyra fret over what they perceive to be the threat immigrants pose to their community (e.g., theft and dropping real estate prices) and Cándido is constantly aware of the possibility of deportation, the only threat that comes to fruition in the novel is that of violence against women. A group of men attempts to gang rape América near the border, Jim Shirley molests her in his car, José Navidad succeeds in raping her in the canyon, and her husband, Cándido, beats her. Even white women, whose race and socioeconomic status offer them some protection relative to América, worry about men committing violence against them. Of the many terrible events the characters fear, the only one to actually occur is men physically and sexually assaulting women. By highlighting violence against women in this way, Boyle is inherently making the argument that this type of violence is more than a threat to be feared—it is a daily reality that demands to be addressed.

Cándido worries constantly about América being harassed by men, both Americans and fellow Mexicans. Yet while Cándido is genuinely concerned for América herself, his worry is also strongly motivated by his understanding of his role as América’s husband. Cándido believes he should be able to protect his wife from other men, and if he cannot, he will have brought shame upon himself (or, rather, América will have brought shame upon him). This shows that Cándido doesn’t fully acknowledge the painful reality of violence committed against women, as he instead measures it in terms of its effect on him. Delaney matches Cándido in this lack of awareness. After the Da Ros home is graffitied (presumably by José Navidad and his unnamed friend) with the phrase “pinche puta” (fucking whore), Kyra asks Delaney to accompany her on her nightly visits to the property. Delaney resents this duty and questions how Kyra “could expect him to put a decent dinner together if he was up here every night looking for phantoms.” Kyra is afraid of encountering José alone, having been intimidated and outnumbered when she first discovered him and his friend on the property. Despite the validity of her feelings, Delaney does not seem to understand or validate Kyra’s fears; instead he acts as if she is being unreasonable and complains about chasing “phantoms.”

Yet as Boyle shows, violence committed against women by men is far from intangible. América is a survivor of multiple attacks, and when José rapes her she not only suffers from PTSD and depression, but also contracts an STD, which causes her to give birth to a blind daughter. Boyle demonstrates that the only way in which violence against women is a “phantom” is that it continues to haunt women long after the violent act itself has been committed. Boyle is sensitive, too, to the intersection of gender and race in regard to this question. Delaney recalls a (presumably white) woman he once met in a birding class, who was attacked while solo hiking, by a group of men—“Mexicans,” she thinks, “or maybe Armenians,” a comment that not only reveals her ignorance but suggests that her fear of the men was heightened because they were not white. One of the men grabbed the woman as she tried to flee, and it is unclear whether the men committed further violence. From that point on, the woman stopped going on hikes alone. Beyond demonstrating that white women are justified in fearing men (even if their fear is colored by racial bias), this detail also shows that Boyle is attuned to the fact that white, affluent women are often able to insulate themselves from dangerous situations that nonwhite, economically disadvantaged women like América are not able to avoid. América does not have a home in the States and she does not always have Cándido by her side—and even when she does he is not always able to protect her, as on the night when she was almost gang raped when crossing the border. In this way Boyle is not only highlighting the urgency of the problem of violence against women, he is also emphasizing that violence is an even more pressing threat to women of color than to white women.

By singling out violence against women as the one human disaster that actually comes to fruition in the novel, Boyle shows that women have far more cause to fear men than men like Delaney and Cándido have to fear one another.