Gorilla Girl by Bonnie Jo Campbell tells the twisted coming-of-age story of a budding sociopath in southern Michigan. The narrator, whose name is not revealed in the text, takes the reader through some of the most significant events of her teenage life, describing actions and emotions that would make any "nice girl" recoil in disgust. " girl. However, this disgust is vital to the story, as the narrator would undoubtedly feel the same level of disdain if she were to behave in a more orthodox manner. It's the story of a young girl who desperately tries to free herself from her skin. She overflows with raw animal energy, lashing out violently against others - and sometimes herself, if no one else is available - in an attempt to appease her frenzied urges. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The text is full of language with negative connotations in order to elicit a primary instinctive reaction in the reader. The author chose words so incredibly loaded that if one went through the story reading only the adjectives it would create feelings almost as powerful as if one read the story as a whole. The narrator describes herself as a “poisoned drink” inside her mother in the first paragraph (15). This first description sets the tone for the story, but it barely begins to scratch the surface. From the moment she is born, the narrator feels crazy, angry, and uncomfortable in her own body. As a baby, she screamed constantly and refused the soft comfort of blankets and toys. In her early childhood, she was violent towards her siblings and, once she was old enough to go to school, passed this violence on to her classmates. Not only did she kill the insects, but she ate them, savoring their misfortune. Its violence extends far beyond the normal realm of typical childhood selfishness or the somewhat morbid but not unnatural inclination that children have to play God with insect lives; the narrator actually finds these outbursts therapeutic. After hitting Tommy Pederson at school, she describes lingering feelings of calm and lucidity as an "afterglow", a word commonly used to describe the period immediately following an orgasm, not a fight (17). Yet an orgasm is nothing more than a massive release, and that's precisely what violence was for her. In the same way, she feels the same clarity when she digs rose thorns into her skin or when she stabs herself with the house keys; we see this pattern of self-harm recurring throughout the text. She also says, "If my parents had beaten me, or even spanked me, it would have been some relief," and she instantly calms down when Dr. Radcliffe slaps her (19). By comforting herself in these violent actions, the narrator expresses her relief at having found a physical outlet for her inner anguish. Her tendency toward self-harm has a common root cause: she is trying to purge herself of emotions that are too frustrating or too dense to deal with directly. Physical pain is something easier to deal with. Her propensity to hurt others and how she feels when someone hurts her are not entirely uncommon, as seen in some sexual subcultures. When a wealthy CEO pays a woman or another man to beat and emasculate him, for example, he is seeking the same sense of clarity and liberation. Our narrator does not necessarily seek violence for sexual gratification, but motivation.