The Illusion of Rescue in 'Alice or The Wild Girl'

Literature loves to celebrate rescue as salvation. From Greek myth and the Bible through medieval romance, saving someone is framed as heroic deliverance—Perseus unchains Andromeda, knights free maidens from dragons and wed them. Scripture promises salvation as the ultimate rescue. When you look closely, however, rescue in Western literature is rarely rescue pure and simple, it is conquest wearing the mask of benevolence: the trope conceals domination, dependency, and desire. Crusoe “rescues” Friday only to rename, convert, and enslave him. In Richardson’s Pamela, Mr. B rescues the heroine from seduction by turning her into his wife—her virtue preserved at the cost of her autonomy. And in Nabokov’s Lolita, Humbert Humbert recasts his abduction as a chivalric rescue from her mother, a stifling small town, and the predator Quilty.