Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Reflective, Honest, Compassionate
At its core, Stolen is Gemma's reflection on her experience of being in captivity. As a result, the narrative voice seems to carry the weight of her trauma as she explores what happened and delves into the details of it all. She does a lot of looking back on what happened and retrospectively discussing how she handled it, letting us feel her despair, frustration, and fear as the story unfolds before our eyes.
At the same time, though, Gemma is brutally honest with both us and Ty, not holding back even when it comes to her deepest and darkest emotions, especially when she emerges from her exile back into the real world. "I hated you for everything," she tells Ty in her narration, "I hated you for all the emotions in my head, for the confusion … for the way I was suddenly doubting everything" (105.12). This is her chance to really unleash her feelings on Ty, and boy does she.
Still, despite the horror of her ordeal and her anger toward Ty, the writing still carries a hint of genuine compassion and forgiveness toward her captor and a wish for him to do good with what's left of his life. Despite Gemma's emotional turmoil, the language acknowledges that she knows he has the ability to do better. "I want you to see that the person I glimpsed running beside the camel, running to save my life, is the person you can choose to be," she says. "I can't save you the way you want me to. But I can tell you what I feel" (111.9).
Are her feelings complicated? Yup, but only because Gemma acknowledges more than her anger and lets herself explore the ways in which Ty isn't an entirely terrible person. Then again, maybe that's just the Stockholm syndrome talking.