Rape Trauma Syndrome Essay

Right after the rape, the wife seemed to display most of the short-term effects of rape trauma syndrome, both in the text and the film. For instance, she was extremely terrified of the hateful look her husband gave her, and throughout the event she constantly was crying and laughing hysterically. Also, in the text, she gives her testimony in a temple and not in the magistrate’s court, implying that she is unwilling to be in the same location as Tajomaru, her rapist. Showing many symptoms of rape trauma syndrome, the wife proves to be a candidate of this mental impairment. The rape trauma syndrome can even explain her sudden and seemingly inconsiderate wish to have her husband killed, for many candidates of the syndrome have “problems with romantic …show more content…
According to University of Wisconsin–Madison philosophy research professor Elliott Sober, altruists and egoists can perform the same actions, but what distinguishes them apart is their motive. “If the choice is to help others and receive pleasure, or to not help and not receive pleasure, Extreme Egoists will help. In this case, however, helping others is a correlate, not a cause” (Sober 92). “Extreme Altruists” will make the same decision, “but they do not make this selection because they take an interest in their own pleasure. For Extreme Altruists, the pleasure that results from this choice is an artifact, not a cause” (Sober 91). In other words, egoists can help others if doing so aligns with their own intentions and satisfies their desires. Tajomaru’s seemingly self-sacrificing offers to the wife is truly egoistic because his offers were aimed at fulfilling his own selfish desires of getting the wife to leave with him. Also, when he kicked down the wife and asked the husband what he should do with her, he seemed respectful of the husband’s opinions and marriage, but he does so only because he himself no longer wants the unloyal