Allegedly

CHAPTERS 1-3

Reading Check

1. It lacks comfort and safety. (Chapter 1)

2. The 98th percentile (Chapter 2)

3. Her alleged crime (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Like Herbert, she sees herself as a person that others consider a nuisance and sees her life as a big hand always coming after her with lethal intent. (Chapter 1)

2. The interspersed testimonies and media clips provide a third-person perspective of Mary’s past and character following the crime that contrasts starkly with the first-person perspective of Mary and her circumstances in the present. This creates tension regarding her identity and undermines the veracity of her conviction. (Chapter 2)

3. Mary was convicted of a crime in which she allegedly killed a three-month old. As a result, she cannot bear the thought of having an abortion because she believes it will confirm her status as a “baby-killer.” She also cannot raise the child in a group home; since she is a ward of the state at 16, her child will also become a ward of the state, and the state will likely decide that adoption is the best option given her past. Her pregnancy is unusually complicated because her options are limited and she is ill-equipped to choose the option she wants. (Chapter 3)  

CHAPTERS 4-6

Reading Check

1. Taking her pills (Chapter 4)

2. Mirrors (Chapter 5)

3. That she is off her medications (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Mary’s mother has mental health conditions that often interfere with her ability to function; Mary describes this as her mother having “a day.” As a result of her mother’s poor mental health, Mary experiences long periods of neglect and starvation interspersed with abuse at her mother’s hands. Eventually, Mary also takes on adult roles such as paying bills. She also describes times in which her mother appears kind and loving by making her favorite foods and comforting her, but often she reveals that there were ulterior motives for her kindness. The many versions of her mother lead Mary to feel love, hate, and protectiveness for her, though her mother does not seem to reciprocate those feelings. (Chapter 4)

2. Mary believes that if she can do well on the SAT and raise her child, people will see that she has been rehabilitated. However, her caseworker and parole officer doubt her ability to even try for these goals; this reveals how little trust those who run rehabilitation systems have in a person’s ability to be rehabilitated, and it raises the question as to why they pretend their role is to help her rehabilitate herself if they do not trust their own system. (Chapter 5)

3. The ordinary scene in which a mother helps her daughter choose makeup and teaches her how best to apply it is usually a positive one, but Jackson controls the mood to undermine the intimate scene and reveal sinister and unhealthy relationship dynamics. The mood changes quickly from ominous to giddy as Mary begins to warm to her mother’s charms and sees her own face transformed in the mirror, but then the mood becomes more sinister. Mary ignores blatant emotional abuse as her mother criticizes her choice in colors and buys her only one tube of lipstick while buying many things for herself—warnings Mary wills herself to ignore because she greatly desires her mother’s approval. The scene ends as her mother reveals that the trip was a bribe to get Mary to stop trying to reopen her case, undermining the intimacy Mary believed she had shared with her mother. This scene captures all the stages of an abusive relationship cycle: First, an incident is followed by tension; then, there is a honeymoon period in which the victim believes things might change; finally, there is a period of disillusionment as the abuser returns to old behaviors. (Chapter 6)

CHAPTERS 7-9

Reading Check

1. A storm/hurricane (Chapter 7)

2. Her father is listed as N/A. (Chapter 8)

3. Living arrangement/other girls (Chapter 9)

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. The approaching storm coincides with Mary’s intensifying living situation, Ted’s aging-out of his group home without a place to go, and Kelly’s return from the hospital to the group home where Mary will face retribution for scalding her. Literally and metaphorically, the water is rising and making the world more inhospitable for Mary. (Chapter 7)

2. Sarah helps Mary contact a lawyer to reexamine her case and show her that if she can be exonerated, she will be able to be legally emancipated and keep her baby. (Chapter 8)

3. Her mother’s mental condition and Ray’s abuse forced Mary into adult roles as a child, and when Mary was only nine, many people wanted her tried as an adult for Alyssa’s murder. This is ironic because now, at 16, they want to treat her like a child. (Chapter 9)

CHAPTERS 10-12

Reading Check

1. Reba’s mutilated cat (Chapter 10)

2. Killing Alyssa (Chapter 11)

3. Brave (Chapter 12)

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In addition to telling her that the courts would show a child lenience and promising her a puppy, her mother impressed upon Mary that she would not survive prison, leveraging Mary’s role as the protector in their relationship against her for her own benefit. (Chapter 10)

2. All the group home girls have deep traumas and needs that are not being met in the current system, where those in charge do not even facilitate basic physical and emotional safety. (Chapter 10)

3. Cora made waves in law school by disagreeing openly with her professor regarding the handling of the case. Instead of staying quiet, she learned all she could about Mary’s case, meaning that Mary shaped the course of Cora’s own law career. (Chapter 12)

CHAPTERS 13-15

Reading Check

1. Negligence and/or noncompliance with the state’s recommendations (Chapter 13)

2. Sabotages SAT/steals ID (Chapter 14)

3. Alyssa’s throat (Chapter 15)

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. When Sarah hears that her mother has died from cancer, she takes responsibility with glee, and her demeanor drastically changes. Mary recognizes this shift in behavior because it is similar to her mother’s behavior when she is having “a day” and becomes deluded and abusive. As a result, Mary realizes that the Sarah she knew is no longer present and, to her horror, is living right next to her. (Chapter 14)

2. Mary wants her mother to reveal her own crime to the world by being caught in her lies and misdirection. She is confident that this will happen without interfering. (Chapter 15)

3. Given Sarah’s prior charges for pushing her own ailing mother down a flight of stairs, Mary might have predicted that she would eventually do the same to her in retaliation for being unable to hide her fear of Sarah’s new persona. Even if she had expected it, there was no other way for her to leave the house. (Chapter 15)

CHAPTERS 16-18

Reading Check

1. Adopt her baby (Chapter 16)

2. She killed Junior. (Chapter 17)

3. Close the case (Chapter 18)

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. The home is messy and dark compared to when Mary last saw it, underscoring the emotional pain she has lived with for the past six years. Not only is Alyssa’s bedroom perfectly preserved, but the dried-up Christmas tree from the year of Alyssa’s death also remains in the living room, a sign that she has not moved on from that time in her life. Finally, the new cigarette smoking and the empty bottles of vodka reveal how she has been stuck in a self-destructive depression since Alyssa’s death. (Chapter 16)

2. Marisol’s conviction that she would do time for her mother without anger or a second question if it would save her life makes Mary question her choice to reopen the case. Unlike Sarah, though she hates her mother for the abuse she has suffered, she does not want her mother dead. (Chapter 17)

3. By the end, it is clear that Mary is an unreliable narrator; her motives in Alyssa’s death revolve around a desire for Mrs. Richardson to be her own mother. Mary’s belief that Bean will be a good baby and never cry hints that the distorted thinking that led her to kill Alyssa has not changed and that she may continue to use distorted logic in her quest to find acceptance and safety. Though Mary may have a chance at being exonerated, her underlying mental and emotional needs remain unmet. However, she does acknowledge her need to remain on her medications, which leaves enough room for hope that her future remains ambiguous. (Chapter 18)