defenselessness

Burns’ cyclical, sardonic prose underscores the unnamed narrator’s defenselessness against neighborhood gossip that marks the Milkman’s unwanted attentions as consensual.

Comer’s portrayal of that defenselessness is devastating: Mousy and short-circuited, the gloss gone from her hair, she looks small in her clothes and alone in the world.

De Armas had to grapple with how Norma used a demeanor of defenselessness as a defense mechanism.

“Things like this reflect the state of defenselessness and impunity that prevails in the country,” said lawyer Carlos Trapani, head of the children’s rights organization Cecodap.

“We live in a state of defenselessness on every level,” Guevara said of the situation in his Central American homeland.