Know My Name: A Memoir

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 9-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary

Miller returns to Philadelphia hoping for a fresh start. She quickly realizes, “I was angry to still be angry” (213). The sentencing is scheduled to take place on June 2. Alaleh has recommended a sentence of six out of a possible 14 years. Miller has eight weeks to compose a victim impact statement that she will read at the sentencing.

Miller continues performing with the comedy club. Her savings are running low. Within a month, Lucas will move to San Francisco, and Miller will return to live with her parents. In the final weeks before their move, Miller is overcome with emotion that she “had shut down to make it through” and now releases, “[her] body helpless against the anguish passing through in waves” (215). Miller is contacted by an old family friend named Michele Dauber, “a Stanford professor and activist who demanded Stanford do more to stop campus sexual assault” (215). Miller opens up to even more friends about the assault. They move into action to support her at the sentencing.

Miller delays writing her statement. She receives a phone call from a probation officer who asks for her input on the upcoming sentencing. Their conversation is brief but leaves Miller with “a lingering discomfort” (218). Alaleh reaches out a few days later and explains that “[T]he probation officer had offered a lenient sentence, had said [Miller] only cared about treatment, not incarceration, suggesting Brock didn’t belong in prison” (218). Enraged, Miller struggles to “funnel [her] anger into a petty tap-tap of keys” (221). Miller navigates her overwhelming emotions to compose a 28-page first draft in nine hours. Over the next few days, Miller revises and practices reading her statement. She sends her final statement one week before the sentencing.

Miller returns to California and delivers an abridged but powerful version of her statement. She hears Turner’s voice for the first time as he reads a statement only “ten sentences long, generic apologies and plans to educate students about the dangers of alcohol” (233). In sentencing Turner, the judge uses his drunkenness as a reprieve from any “moral culpability” (233). He blames Miller for “‘not seeing’ the genuine remorse of Turner” (234). Turner receives six months in county jail, which Alaleh points out “would only mean three months: every day of good behavior meant a day off of his sentence” (236). Although in shock, Miller agrees to release her statement to the public and is put in contact with a journalist at Buzzfeed.

Chapter 10 Summary

The next morning, Miller calls the journalist from Buzzfeed and grants permission for the statement’s release. Throughout the day, Miller reads through the positive comments on the article. Despite the high praise and rapidly growing number of views, Miller still struggles to see herself as Emily, “a hero. Courageous and clear headed, defiant and unapologetic, a figure of truth and power” (247). Her statement is shared internationally and “would be read eighteen million times on Buzzfeed alone” (251). She receives a letter from then Vice President Joe Biden.

Miller's statement has almost immediate effects. Stanford students hold up signs at graduation calling upon Stanford to make changes. The district attorney “propose[s] a new mandatory prison sentence for those convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious or intoxicated person and expand[s] California’s definition of rape” (254). A campaign to recall Judge Persky, the judge in Miller’s case, works “to include the recall on the ballot for the next election, which would be held in two years” (254). Miller is filled with gratitude and now understands that “[She] ha[s] done something good, created power from pain, provided solace while remaining honest about the hardships victims face” (255).

Chapters 9-10 Analysis

In the aftermath of the trial’s conclusion, Miller comes to realize that her need for healing will continue. She continues working on her anger and depression as she awaits Turner’s sentencing date. Here, Miller demonstrates that the effects of sexual assault continue far beyond the date of the assault and even the potential trial process. Survivors like Miller continue to grapple with the devastation of their assaults daily, no matter the outcome.

The elusiveness of real justice does not help this healing process. Miller records her continual disillusionment with the legal system. Her brief and damaging interaction with the probation officer exemplifies the lack of care and attention survivors receive from the representatives whose jobs are to guide them through the complicated legal process. Miller is left confused and misrepresented, which contributes to the lenient sentence awarded to Turner despite his unanimous guilty verdict. Miller comes to the realization that her attempts to try “asserting [her]- opinion without coming off as self-serving or overcontrolling” led the probation officer to read “[her] composure [as] a signal that what he’d done was of little consequence” (219). Miller attributes this attempt to repress her anger to her status as a woman. She highlights the ways in which the system protects and centers men even when they are found guilty of sexual assault.

This experience and subsequent disillusionment fuels Miller to write her statement with the added purpose of clarifying her position. She struggles to balance the rage she feels at Turner and the system with rhetorical poise. Miller delivers her statement in-person in a formidable display of her strength. She speaks with the desire to have “everyone consumed by my voice, in my control” (231). This moment allows Miller to face her rapist directly from a position of reclaimed power.

The judge’s lenient sentence embodies the double standards Miller criticizes throughout her memoir. Despite the guilty verdict decided upon by 12 jurors, Judge Persky finds more fault with Miller’s lack of empathy and understanding than with the deliberate and dangerous actions of Turner. Miller writes, “I could see the judge snipping it in midair, the bridge falling, leaving me on the side and Brock to be coddled on his. Everyone around him had succeeded in preserving him inside his illusion. I had tried to pull him out” (234-35). Miller had hoped for Turner’s sentencing to solidify progress towards holding men responsible for their violence against women. Judge Persky’s decision is an obstacle to that progress. Miller uses the word “coddle” to exemplify the pampering and protection society affords men and denies to women. Despite her status as the victim of Turner’s violence, she is left to pick up the pieces while Turner finds comfort and protection. In this moment, Miller recognizes fully the greater societal forces that maintain women’s oppression to this day.

Ultimately, it is Miller’s words that allow her to work towards change and progress. She doubts the impact of her words but allows her statement to be published in full by BuzzFeed. The tremendous positive response she receives pushes “[her] closer to a space in which [she] was beginning to see [her]self more clearly” (249). The international reach of Miller’s statement demonstrates the power of Miller’s voice as a writer and a woman as well as the need for the statement worldwide. Although personal, her statement captures the experiences of survivors around the world. She hopes her words will resonate with these survivors and will “get you to stay here, to see the value of you, the beauty of your life” (251).