Long Shot

Ryan’s depiction of Iris’s relationship with Caleb provides an unfiltered look at a physically and emotionally abusive relationship dynamic to create awareness around domestic violence and disrupt stereotypical perspectives surrounding survivors’ experiences. In a content warning at the start of the source text, Ryan explains that she began writing Long Shot “in response to a young woman whose journey with domestic abuse was being played out in the media without much care or compassion” (i). With Iris’s story, Ryan examines the gendered power dynamics of her relationship with Caleb, conveying the ways that the abusive intimate relationship disempowers her and limits her freedom. Whereas contemporary culture often depicts women in such relationships as weak and passive, Ryan portrays Iris as a strong woman stuck in an impossible situation. Ryan takes care to position Iris’s decision to stay with Caleb even after he becomes violent as a symptom of her fear and need, rather than evidence of her inadequacy.

The way that Iris internally processes this dynamic and hesitates to discuss it with her closest confidantes conveys the oppressive nature of recurrent abuse. Iris’s sense that she’s trapped in her relationship with Caleb intensifies after she gives birth to Sarai, highlighting the complex and gendered challenges of having a child in the