In any given situation, it is crucial to prevent yourself from falling into invisibility. One must step into character and create certain clarity about yourself and your worth. If you do not, one day you will vanish, both physically and psychologically. The main character of the short story “Low Visibility” by Margaret Murphy from 2008 is one of the more fortunate that acts before it is too late.

The story is about a woman named Laura, and her marriage with her abusive husband called John. Sitting in the living room one evening they follow the street riots all over town on the local news channel. Laura does not say a word nor move, in terror of what her husband might do to her. Even though, Laura does nothing to draw attention to herself, John slowly but surely punishes her absentmindedly. While they are watching TV the street riots spread to their apartment building and the store underneath gets broken in to. In anger, John goes down to make the rebels stop, but instead ends up getting beaten up. Laura goes down to the street only to find her husband in a bad shape covered in blood. When John asks for her help, she neglects to do so. A rebel passes them on the street, noticing Laura and does not see John at all, who is begging for help. Curious Laura asks the man if he is not afraid to get caught, to which he answers “Not me, girl. I’ve been invisible all my life” (p. 12 l. 165-166). In the end Laura ends up leaving John behind, walking away surrounded by explosions.

We are dealing with a third person narrator, which let us know both Laura and her husband’s thoughts, while at the same time we have a full overview of what is happening in the story. Furthermore the structure itself also leaps between the narrator’s storytelling, and different dialogues, mostly between John and Laura. Also the story begins in medias res where we find the couple watching the riots on the news. While Laura does not say a word, her husband John is conducting his own monologue and making spiteful remarks about Laura’s terrified, silent respond “Nothing to contribute?” (p. 9 l. 39) and “No sharp insights into the situation?” (p. 9 l. 41). Soon to discover the riots are happening just outside their building and John decides to go down and take the control. On his way out Laura surprisingly commands him to stay inside the apartment, but only to be overlooked once again, and at that point she starts believing that she truly is invisible.

At the time John walks down to the street in attempt to stop the rebels, she pulls out a tiger eye stone from her pocket, given to her from an old friend. The stone, she was told, was to give courage and create harmony in a situation of chaos. Holding on to the stone a flash of hope triggers inside of her. Representing her previous happy life, it gave her the strength she needed. She found John lying outside who was badly injured. When he asks for her help she finally has the courage she had so needed. She grabbed a brick, knowing this was the opportune moment for her to revenge herself, but instead she walks away leaving nothing but the words “Order out of chaos”. She had had enough of the suffering and of the chaos. To create harmony out of chaos is usually the though behind many riots, and in this case a riot was essential for Laura to free herself from her husband. She needed the chaos as a help to realize she had had enough, and liberate herself from her husband and in that way once again achieve harmony in her life.

Before Laura met John she was a confident, energetic and spirited woman with a good sense of humor, made obvious by the following examples: “She wasn’t always like this. Once, she was a girl who could set a room to laughter.” (p. 8 l. 19) and “She wanted to help him, to give him a chance to feel like he belonged” (p. 11 l. 152). Being married to John had left her empty and barely noticed the change herself, and had now become a silent and invisible piece of furniture, that would change its shape only when allowed to by John’s rules “The slaps and shoves that at first shocked her, became something to be expected; they reshaped her, moulding her into something less distinct, more insubstantial” (p. 8 l. 29-30). She is scared of her husband and his ways of hurting her. She has learned when to move and when not to, to read his mood and then judge how much liberty she is entitled to “She shakes her head – just enough so he knows she didn’t mean to interrupt” (p. 8 l. 36). Laura has learned to appreciate the small things and in some way managed to maintain her tender heart.

In the end of the story Laura awakens, she is faced with a rather big decision, whether she would continue her life as it is, or put a stop to all the misery John has put her through. She is given the choice whether to make and end to his life, but instead she chooses to leave without harming him. Considering her opportunity of revenge this shows us that she is really a much stronger person than he is because she is able to act without violence. Finally she escapes her imprisonment and realizes her worth. The tables are turned, when leaving she is the one standing unharmed while he is the one lying wounded on the street. Laura is now the one in control. Worth noticing is that when the positions in the marriage has changed only then we learn Laura’s name. She has been labelled as this nameless, speechless woman who only now is allowed to disengage herself from her invisibility and into visibility.

The title “Low Visibility” could be referred to the fact that Laura is at a point in her life where she no longer has any saying. She is blinded by her marriage and subjected to her abusive husband. The street riots activate the warning lights and warn her before it is too late. She is living in darkness, and she is given a chance to escape, a flash of light in the darkness in the shape of hope helps her improve her own conditions and to escape her invisibility.