Personal Response

I have read just under half of "The Tattooed Girl" so far, and I have already learned a lot about the main characters and the story's conflicts. One thing about this story I have noticed is that the main characters thus far have very distinct personalities, some that all seem to clash with eachother. There seem to be hidden secrets, and so far Oates has left me with a lot of questions about some of the main characters.

The main mystery to me while reading this story has been Alma Busch, aka "The Tattooed Girl." Alma seemed to come out of nowhere, and there are so many unanswered questions that Oates has introduced about her but hasn't yet answered. On Alma's first night into town she got involved with the wrong guy, the waiter Dmitri. She thought he was nice because he took her home and bathed her and fed her, but really he had terrible motives and a disgusting disrespect for her and other women. Although Alma isn't described as a very intellectual girl, she seems to have often had to fend for herself in the past, and has common sense. After being helped by Dmitri, she basically fell in love with him. I don't understand this because he treats her so horribly. Dmitri beats her and abuses her sexually, and sells her body to other men without her consent. But despite this, she still comes running back to a man who doesn't even like her trying to pay him and beg for his love.

Another mystery about Alma is her tattooes. The tattooes are scattered about her body, and are describes as poorly done and appear to be blemish-like. My first impression of these tattooes was that someone did them to her, because they are described to be unflattering and randomly placed; but I don't know this for a fact. My main question regarding this is: If someone did this to Alma in her recent past, why won't she tell anyone anything about it? That question leads me to wonder if she did something bad, something related to this that she doesn't want anyone to know.

The book started off sort of slow, but now I am finding it to be a pretty easy read for me. I have grown used to Oates' style, which is kind of unlike the books I normally read. Oates' uses a point of view in the novel that is very interesting to me: Oates herself is narrating, and is describing the characters and plot in a 3rd person point of view. She is allowing the reader into the minds of her characters, but she only shows the thoughts of one character at a time. Usually this is done by chapter, showing the story through the eyes of different characters in different chapters. It is convenient to be able to know the characters' thoughts, especially with their complicated and somewhat moody personalities. But at the same time, only having a view into one character's thoughts at a time really makes me have to pay close attention to detailed quotes and thoughts of the characters, because the alternation between points of view could get my knowledge of the characters confused between one another. But besides the interesting perspective used by Oates, the story has smooth transitioning and a vocabulary that isn't too difficult for me to understand. So far I am enjoying watching the characters progress and learning more about their complex lives.