IJ study archive

The dead-infant speaker at White Flag (p. 378)

quote

and the speaker was medically informed by somebody with a clipboard from D.S.S. that the infant had been involuntarily toxified to death somewhere along in its development toward becoming a boy

Context

The clinical verdict, delivered by clipboard: "involuntarily toxified" — the passive voice and the adverb carrying the whole responsibility question the meeting is structured around. The infant is the theme's zero point: deformity with no choice anywhere in it, arrested "somewhere along in its development toward becoming a boy."

In anthology