It is their submissiveness that shocks S. more than anything else, their willingness to obey orders without question. She thinks this is so, not only because the men have guns, but also because these people are still in a state of disbelief, in some temporary state of numbness, that they refuse to understand what is happening to them. Or perhaps it is a kind of naivety, the belief that surely somebody must know what is being done and why, that there must be a reason for this action. S. is unable to discern what is really happening herself. Later she recognizes such behavior as a result of fear, which paralyzes the whole being--thought, movement and emotion.
---S., by Slavenka Drakulic
# posted by Jay Taber : 11:21 AM
