My Dark Vanessa

Much of the novel takes place in Vanessa’s memory, as she thinks back to her sophomore year in high school at Browick, and the theme of the unreliability of her memory allows the reader to trace the changes in Vanessa’s character. Vanessa’s adult memories exist alongside a narration of the actual events of Vanessa’s sophomore year and a few of the years that follow. Because these narratives are juxtaposed, the reader can discern the many moments when Vanessa’s adult memory fails her. Vanessa’s idealization of the sexual abuse she sustained is contrasted with the gestures and emotions of a meaningful love affair, highlighting the damaging effects of sexual abuse on young people.

Vanessa’s unreliable memory causes her significant pain, but it is not a personal shortcoming that reveals a deficiency in Vanessa’s psyche. Rather, it is evidence of the power Strane was able to exert over her young and undeveloped person when he claimed to fall in love with a 15-year-old girl. Strane’s tendency to blame Vanessa for being such an attractive person has the double effect of passing on the responsibility of choice to Vanessa while also securing Vanessa’s affection and trust for his belief in her potential, a belief no other adult in Vanessa’s life can show her.