No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1, Chapter 3

Part 1, Chapters 4-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-8

Part 1, Chapters 9-10

Part 2, Chapters 11-13

Part 2, Chapters 14-16

Part 2, Chapters 17-18

Part 3, Chapters 19-21

Part 3, Chapters 22-24

Part 3, Chapter 25

Author’s Note-Afterword

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Rocky’s Home Videos

The home videos that Rocky left behind after killing his family and himself are a symbol of the red flags overlooked in the run-up to the murders. Their symbolism is somewhat unlikely, given that Snyder notes earlier on that Michelle’s father has scoured the videos for hints of what would happen and come up short. When Snyder watches them, she does catch one telling moment that Paul missed: when Michelle “coyly” describes the video she’s shooting as “evidence,” Rocky lunges for the camera with a “beastly” expression (102).

However, what the videos demonstrate above all else is the broader and often subtler atmosphere in which domestic violence can thrive, including the misogyny that underpins it. Discussing the many videos showing Michelle (despite her objections) in states of undress, Snyder remarks,

As in cinema, this objectification—woman as an erotic form for the filmmaker or viewer—underscored the power dynamic in their relationship. [...] I am tempted, of course, to avoid reading too much into these moments […] I also consider how ceding power to another person does not happen in a vacuum (101).

The “red flags” in the videos are therefore not red flags in the usual sense. In and of themselves, they may even seem trivial, but they point to something seriously amiss with both Rocky and Michelle’s relationship and society at large, and it is therefore their very “normalcy” that is alarming.

Strangulation

Snyder devotes considerable attention to Strack’s research on strangulation in Part 2. There are several reasons for this, the most obvious of which is the one that Strack herself identifies: Past strangulation is a major predictor of domestic homicide. The fact that police and medical practitioners often miss it can have devastating consequences and resonates symbolically in light of the work’s title. Although strangulation of course does cause physical injuries, its effects are relatively invisible compared to other means of attack; in fact, Snyder says, “the domestic violence community believe[s] today […] that most strangulation injuries are internal” (66). Strangulation therefore encapsulates the silence that surrounds and facilitates domestic violence. It is even a factor in perpetuating that silence in the sense that it inhibits victims’ ability to speak both literally (with the immediate vocal damage it causes) and figuratively (with the negative impact it can have on memory and emotional control, thereby undermining a victim’s perceived credibility).

Guns

Although domestic violence and homicide don’t always involve guns, No Visible Bruises makes the case that limiting access to guns would substantially reduce murder rates:

David Adams said that he […] had decided to test this theory [that someone wanting to commit murder would find other means in the absence of a gun] among fourteen killers that he interviewed. ‘Eleven of the fourteen men who used a gun said that they would not have killed if the gun were not available […]’ (188).

Guns are also dangerous in ways that things like knives and fists are not, for the obvious reason that they’re ranged weapons. They therefore quite literally limit a victim’s potential avenues of escape.

Snyder also associates guns with a culture of toxic masculinity. For example, she quotes a prosecutor noting that guns are as much a means of coercion as they are a weapon: “It’s not always an issue of being shot […] [Guns are] used to make threats, to back up threats, or to add to the environment of intimidation” (188). In this sense, guns symbolize and reinforce the violent authority society teaches men to assume over women. The widespread availability of guns in the US is also indicative of society’s toleration and even encouragement of violence; tacitly, Snyder suggests, we view the preservation of male violence as more important than female safety.