Trapped

The novel TRAPPED comprises three interrelated plots which run back and forth within the plot structure. In the present we see 20-year-old GERALDINE OCAMPO waiting for her boyfriend, BEN JENNINGS, a law student and son of a respectable judge in Ipswich. It is midnight. Geraldine has packed her suitcase and is ready to escape from her pimp MAX who is after her, because she has stashed money away from her earnings as a prostitude (initiating incident). Geraldine's nervousness increases because Ben is late. She begins to question his love, because why should the son of a respectable judge fall in love with a prostitude? Max shows up in front of her London flat, but she can escape with the help of a taxi driver who takes her to Ben's apartment (rising action). Waiting for Ben, his father, DR. JENNINGS, suddenly arrives and offers her 10.000 pounds to get away from his son who deserves a better, a socially agreeable girlfriend. She rejects the offer. Finally she receives a whatsapp message from Ben, telling her to get to Paddington Railway Station at 4:05 a.m (climax). In a scuffle with Dr. Jennings she is able to get free and escapes (turning point). Finally she reaches the railway station while Max is following her. Geraldine is relieved when she sees Ben. On the train he takes her in his arms (denouement/ happy ending/ open ending). The main part of TRAPPED is devoted to the description of the circumstances that lead to her life as a prostitude. At the age of ten her mother, SOPHIE BANGS-OCAMPO, who has married ALAN BANGS, an engineer, in England, picks her daughter up in Manila. Geraldine suffers enormously from the mother's lack of love. She retreats to her room and feels like Gregor Samsa in Kafka's short story Metamorphosis. At the age of thirteen, three and a half years after her arrival in England, she joins a gang of shoplifters and becomes the leader of the gang due to her success as a shoplifter. The initiating incident is her final arrest. A police officer brings her home. Geraldine is beaten up by her mother who is considering to send her back to the Philippines. Months later she gets to know 19-year-old BURIM, a refugee from Kosovo, who supplements his welfare payments by collecting money from prostitudes. She falls in love with him (climax). At the age of fourteen Geraldine loses her virginity in a brutal sexual act. From then on Burim treats her as his property. While she is doing her community service at a nursery for elderly people Burims tells her to steal the jewellery from one of the residents who will die sooner or later anyway. But Geraldine is unable to steal the jewellery from the old lady, because she has established a close relationship with her. Although she has been beaten up by Burim, she promises to help him if he gets in a predicament again. Geraldine ends up in a home for unattended juveniles after a fight with her mother (turning point). After a year Burim and Geraldine live together in a flat when Burim manipulates her into working as a whore. She remembers EMIRLINA, her best friend in the Philippines, who, out of love to her parents, sells her body to support her parents financially. Consequently, Geraldine, who is dependent on Burim, is ready to do the job to help Burim. But one day a stranger who does not look like a punter arrives at her flat. It is Max. The London pimp. The third plot centres on Geraldine's life in the Philippines before she is picked up by her mother who has left her in Victorias City at the age of one. Growing up with her grandmother Geraldine has to cope with the envy of one of his mother's brothers and with the pupils in her class. They all envy her for her chance of leaving poverty behind by moving to a rich country like England.