Know My Name: A Memoir

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019

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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

Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary

Miller prepares for the hearing scheduled to begin in three weeks. She has been living in Philadelphia with Lucas for one month. As she awaits a call with Alaleh, she erupts in anger at Lucas. In her rage, she “slam[s] [her] phone onto the counter” and shatters the screen (98). After the incident, she agrees to begin therapy. After telling her story to her new therapist, she feels “lighter, like [she’d]’d left some of the weight up in the building, which made it easier to walk in the streets” (100-101). Through therapy, Miller begins to realize how much she internalized the judgmental comments she read about herself and gave “the opinions of online strangers equal weight to actual people” (101).

Alaleh notifies Miller that the hearing has been delayed once again. She informs her sister Tiffany and feels guilty for disrupting her sister’s life. The night before she is scheduled to return for the hearing, Miller learns that the hearing is again delayed. Miller decides to return home anyway. Once she arrives, Miller tours the courtroom and prepares to testify. Nervous, Miller remembers her time in a Spoken Word college course where she performed a piece inspired by the sexual assault of her friend. She contrasts the boldness she felt at the time with the silence she feels “now that [she] was the one assaulted while unconscious” (107). Tiffany returns home from school, and the two sisters review their transcripts in preparation for testifying.

The next day, Miller testifies. She states her name openly in court. She quickly identifies the defense’s tactics to limit her testimony by “teaching [her] to be afraid of speaking freely” (112). When she reaches the part of her testimony that details her blacking out, Miller becomes emotional and is inconsolable. They take a brief recess where Miller attempts to gather herself. Upon returning, Miller struggles through the rest of her direct examination. She is asked to identify a series of photographs from the scene of the assault, and seeing these makes the reality of what happened begin to truly resonate with Miller. When asked about consent, Miller answers with “No”—an act that empowers her. The cross-examination begins, and Miller notices how the defense attorney’s questions are “not hard hitting, but hole poking” (118). It ends abruptly and Miller is dismissed.

Miller returns to school with her sister and sleeps peacefully. She feels proud of herself for testifying and for doing “what [she]’d never thought [she] could do” (121). This initial pride wanes the next morning when she reads the comments of articles detailing yesterday’s events. Miller falls back into a depression. The only relief she finds is in reading about the testimony of the Swedish graduate students who intervened. She is inspired by their willingness to intervene and confront her attacker. She resolves “to teach [her]self to talk like them. To one day face [her] attacker and say, What the fuck are you doing” (123).

Chapter 5 Analysis

In this chapter, Miller takes important steps towards healing. She begins to recognize the emotional and mental toll her trauma is taking on her and those around her. She struggles to “recognize who [she] [is] becoming. Volatile, enraged, touch the topic and [she]d explode” (99). After initially resisting, Miller agrees to meet with a therapist and acknowledges that previously she had been “in complete denial about the magnitude of the role this case would play in [her] life” (99). She feels a weight lifted in sharing her story with her therapist and begins writing in a notebook, recording, “It feels better when the story is outside myself” (101). She starts the process of recognizing harmful patterns of behavior, including the internalization of the online comments about herself that she obsessively reads. With the help of her therapist, she begins “to distinguish real experiences from online ones” (101).

In this vein of confronting her truth, Miller returns to California after a long absence. She awaits the beginning of her hearing, which has been delayed repeatedly. Miller’s experience on the witness stand is one of confronting her attacker openly, no longer under the shield of anonymity. Unable to hide from her trauma, Miller becomes overwhelmed with emotion. At first, the sound is outside of herself: “I heard a sound, a long wail, a high cooing, that sailed and fell” (113). As the sound grows louder, Miller recognizes that it is her own crying. Unable to escape this confrontation of emotions, Miller comes to a moment of full realization. She faces the reality of what has happened to her. She finds her voice in this moment and answers Alaleh’s question regarding consent clearly and directly. Her answer to Alaleh’s question is a strong “no” that demonstrates the full empowerment of her voice. This statement reinvigorates her and “[feels] like nourishment, taste[s] like something new” (117).

After testifying, Miller recognizes her own strength. Although she grew emotional, Miller leaves the courtroom and feels like “[T]hose who watched [her] cry on the stand might have perceived [her] as fragile, but [she] believe[s] it to be the quiet beginning of [her] strength” (121). The next morning, however, Miller again struggles with internalizing the judgments of strangers on the Internet. She falls into a depression and is only buoyed by reading about the bravery of the Swedish graduate students who intervened the night of her assault. She finds inspiration in the heroic actions of these students and comments on the needs for such inspiration in society at large. Miller states, “What we needed to raise in others was this instinct. The ability to recognize, in an instant, right from wrong. The clarity of mind to face it rather than ignore it” (123). Through the actions of the Swedish students, she finds inspiration and a path forward not only for herself but also for society. Her use of the collective “we” connotes a hopefulness and belief in her ability to change the violence she herself has experienced.