Fox

Modern psychologists have identified four basic responses to trauma, which are commonly called the “four Fs” of trauma response. These include the well-known “fight or flight” responses common to both humans and non-human animals in threatening situations, along with the “freeze” response identified by American psychologist Walter Cannon in the 1920s and the “fawn” response identified by American psychologist Pete Walker in the late 20th century. In the “freeze” response, the person experiencing trauma becomes immobilized or unable to act, while in the “fawn” response, the person offers appeasement to or submission to avoid harm. Fox’s main targets respond to his abuse by using several of these tactics, with one mode ultimately taking precedence. Genevieve fawns, Mary Ann flees, and Eunice fights.

Genevieve initially responds to Fox by immobilizing herself. Although “[s]he would like to push away his hand holding the cell phone [she] does not want to offend Mr. Fox” (101), so she freezes. She also flees at least once from his office when his assault is disrupted by an outside knock. Yet Genevieve most often fawns over Fox, appeasing him by giving him what he asks for, especially pictures, which she then dutifully deletes. Even after his death, Genevieve can tout the specialness of Fox. She tells Zwender that Fox “‘promised […] [they] would die for each other if that were asked of [them] […] Mr. Fox went first, and now, he is waiting for [her]” (511). Her suicide attempt is her ultimate show of acquiescence.

By contrast, Mary Ann begins by fawning. Because physical affection is so often withheld from or weaponized against her, she longs for Fox’s attention. To Demetrius, she insists on “[h]ow special he is. How kind and generous he is” (284). Unable to realize that her excessive declarations of love are repulsive to Fox, Mary Ann increases their frequency. He responds by withholding the very affection he’s made her crave, deepening her trauma. Her intrusion into his personal space is a fight response, an effort to make him acknowledge what he has done and how he has made her feel. Rejecting her, he tells her that she’s drunk. In a moment of clarity, she angrily hits back with “You’re drunk. I hate you.” (362). This turns the responsibility back upon him. However, to keep herself emotionally safe, Mary Ann throws herself out of Fox’s car and leaves Wieland altogether. Thus, Mary Ann’s traumatic experience ends primarily in flight.

Eunice’s initial response to the trauma of her relationship with Fox is flight. When he gives her first bad grade, she absents herself from school. Once she acquiesces to Fox’s teaching methods, she fawns over his poem, winning his favor. After the abuse begins, Eunice tries to keep Fox’s attention mainly by appeasement. When Fox grows tired of her and tries to break it off, she thinks that threatening to kill herself will show her loyalty and win him back. However, he rejects this, encouraging her acts of self-harm as a way to rid himself of her. As she, like Mary Ann, realizes that Fox is the perpetrator of her trauma, she turns on him with a fight response, killing him with the bust of Poe, a symbolic negation of Eunice’s would-be role of a dead Annabel Lee. While Eunice must continue to battle her traumatic response, her memoir shows her fighting to assert her voice despite her long-ago promise to Fox to remain silent.

Trauma hits each of its survivors in different emotional ways, and Fox shows the wide variety of the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses caused by sexual abuse.