Felice Sipper

Felice Sipper, and the scars she leaves on Luther’s body, symbolize Luther’s misogyny towards women. Felice is a young female classmate, from a poor family, that Luther sexually assaults and rapes as a teenager. At first he manipulates her into doing what he wants, as she is too afraid to say no. Then later, when he rapes her, she gets up afterwards, grabs a jackknife and plunges it into his thigh and in between his ribs, for a total of four wounds. Luther takes the stabbings as a warning from Jesus that he had gone too far. Later as an adult he will stroke his scars from this incident as a reminder of the warning from Jesus. Luther is never caught for what he does to Felice, but Felice and her family end up moving away. Oates uses this interaction and his scars...