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The story takes place in Liverpool where we meet John and Laura. They are in a relationship. In this relationship Laura obeys John and does not fight back, when he hits her. In the beginning he is mentally and physically superior. She has nothing to say because she is not allowed to speak except when he is asking her a question. She is submissive and takes great pleasure in small things. Like when John only digs his finger in her thigh. Before she started dating John she was an open-minded, funny person that could light up a whole room. When the story starts, we as readers, hear about how John and Laura sit in front of the TV. We hear it from an objective point of view. Page 1 line 1. "John is watching TV, one hand on the remote control, the other on her thigh". But this changes on the first page line 15. The narrator becomes subjective. Now we hear it in Laura's point of view. Everything we are told from now on is through her point of view. In this way we hear about her real relationship to John and not their relationship on the surface. We get to know her feelings for John and the treatment she experiences.

Laura has an inner crisis. Neither her life nor her personality is her own when she is together with John. She has a sort of identity crisis. On one hand she wants to break free from John's terror and be herself. Page 1 line 15. "She wishes she could protest, but has forgotten how". On the other hand she cannot escape the terror that John executes. She is oppressed and John's dummy.

Laura develops from an oppressed and scared lady to a stronger, independent woman. She does that in line with the discovery of John's inferiority. She starts talking of own free will when some from the mob breaks into John's store. He barely notices her talking and it is first when she sees John lying in the street, wounded, that she realizes it is her opportunity for liberation. The riots in the streets encourage her to be liberated and fight back.

Through her development in the story she has the tiger eye stone. Her friend told her that it should be a stone "for courage". It gives Laura the courage to liberate herself from John. The stone could symbolize strength. It gives her strength to fight against John and break free from the terror he exposed her.

Page 5 line 176. ""Order out of chaos," she says, choosing the tiger eye. She turns and walks away".

An important thing to keep in mind is that we do not know Laura's name until the very last sentence. She is always referred to as she or her and not by any name. Then the man with the trolley passes by John and Laura in the street. He talks to Laura and ignores the wounded John. Laura gets positively surprised when the stranger talks to her and accepts her the way she is. At that very time she feels visible