"Look at yourself. What do you see?" he says. She stares into the glass. "Nothing ... I'm not here," she says. What do you think Pavla means when she says "I'm not here?"
Created: 08/09/17
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I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment that she was protecting herself or withdrawing. To me, it seemed like she was gaining strength and transcending her current situation. More like, "I'm beyond all this... I'm not here, not subject to your tortures."
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This is the climax, really: her final, transcendent transformation, brought about through her own strength of spirit, and that is very different from disassociation in coping with trauma. Disassociation is being stuck, but hanging in there, whereas Pavla ultimately vanishes. The difference between the two is something suggested when Pavla tries to help Iveta by suggesting that she could picture flowers when she is assaulted by the prison guard. That was Pavla's way of disassociating, but at the end, it's not what takes her to the point of an "exhilarating sense of being" (p. 313) where "she is powerful beyond strength" and she dances (p. 321). Disassociation doesn't have the powerful, positive impact on others that Pavla does at this point: the way the guard Teardrop can't stop wanting to be near her, the reawakening of the hearts of her fellow prisoners. Pavla is a metaphor for the human spirit, I think, where "wanting nothing" we can find inside "a vast emptiness that is filled to the brim just as the heavens are filled with stars." (same pages) This could be an analogy to death, but I think it's more of a statement of how far the spirit can take us in meditation or other transcendent moment, because Pavla does this through her active withdrawal from caring about her surroundings, through her strength, her seeking of wholeness. It reminds me of Elie Wiesel in the concentration camp. Or the saying that we can't choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond to it. "I'm not here" is her choice to live in the spirit, not in the prison.
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I thought when she said "I'm not here" she was overwhelmed with the changes and I don't think she really understood them yet. I also agree with Melanieb that this was disassociating with her reality but somehow knew that she was changing and accepting it.
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It is totally understandable that Pavla has checked out of her life, especially after being buried up to her neck and then stretched. The pain alone would be enough to cause the disassociation, but she also does not resemble her former self and has to leave everything she's known to go on the road with the person who "designed" her.
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