Lust Susan Minot

Contemporary novels have imposed upon the love tribulations of women, throughout the exploration of genre and the romantic quest. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their eyes were watching God (1978) and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (2000) interplay on the various tribulations of women, throughout the conventions of the romantic quest and the search for identity. The protagonists of both texts are women and experience tribulations of their own, however, unique from the conventional romantic novels of their predecessors. Such tribulations include the submission of women and the male desire for dominance when they explore the romantic quest and furthermore, the inner struggles of women. Both texts display graphic imagery of the women’s inner experiences through confronting and engaging literary techniques, which enhance the audiences’ reading experience. Hurston’s reconstructions of the genre are demonstrated through a Southern context, which is the exploration of womanhood and innocence. Whilst Woolf’s interpretation of the romantic quest is shown through modernity and an intimate connection with the persona Clarissa Dalloway, within a patriarchal society.

The short story presents women as aware but misunderstood by men through use of narrative point of view. In society women are usually seen as inferior to men, and therefore often don’t get the acknowledgement they deserve. “The women held their secrets because when they mentioned it to their husbands or brothers they were laughed at….Instead of sympathy, the husbands and brothers now had a secret weapon”. This shows that women did not share their fears as it gave others ideas to torment them further. Women in the short story are also shown to be fully aware of the boy’s behaviour early on in the story. “The men of his home town said, but how

Envision a realm, filled with genderless inhabitants. A realm of pure bliss, where there is no such thing as “mankind and all beings are [biologically] equal. Now imagine an opposite realm, a realm in which Andrea Dworkin resided. Advocate turned author turned agitator. Andrea Dworkin was a heterodox feminist vanguard who paved a path of her own to support this women’s crusade. Defiant, confrontational and arguably offensive, she immersed herself into the tacit realm of patriarchy, seeking to enlighten and expose the sinister sexual methodologies of man that preserve the role of women as besmirched objects of male indulgence and exploitation. Her ideas and concepts of such is best expressed in Dworkin’s two earliest novels; Pornography: Men Possessing Women [1981] and Intercourse [1987]. Consecutively loved and loathed, Dworkin’s has exerted an important impact on the means and degree of male dominated sexuality and female oppression.

Lust is having a self-indulgent sexual desire. Susan Minot portrayed the mind of a promiscuous high school female perfectly. Lust is powerful and seductive, but it's inherently selfish and opposed to love. For many girls who are having sex with different boys they can identify with the desire to be needed. The characters in "Lust" are written in a way to highlight the dysfunction and disconnection of everyone involved. The narrator herself is nameless and faceless, making the reader believe that she has already somehow disappeared, just as the men in her life have made her disappear after having sex. Similarly, the men are listed in a brief and are identified only by their sexual acts or by other, easily objectified characteristics. What

A number of the stories, graphic memoirs and poems we discussed in class have introduced us to women who have been trapped in some way in their lives. Henrik Ibsen’s A Dolls House (1879) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) both demonstrate women being trapped by men in a patriarchal society in the nineteenth century. However, Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where are you going, where have you been?”(1974), Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” (1978) and Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis (2005) are about social norms and girls being sexualized at a young age in the 20th century.

Love between two genders is one of the most common themes in writing. In literature, love is often praised, appreciated and cherished. Another common theme in writing is the looming specter of inequality between men and women, which has been strongly depicted throughout history and is still worryingly present in the world today. It is extremely interesting to realize that though love is treasured and valued, in most cases, it takes both genders to create love, and those genders are often separated by inequality. Both these themes coincide well together; the clash of love and gender inequality is interestingly captivating. In John Updikes A&P and Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, both stories send a conclusive message to the reader that equality between both sexes in love and attraction is almost impossible; one gender will always be more powerful than the other.

Dawson, Lesel "Menstruation, Misogyny, and the Cure for Love." Women's Studies [serial online]. 34.6 (2005):461-484. Literary Reference Center. Ipswich, MA. 7 Oct. 2011.

"They turn casually to look at you, distracted, and get a mild distracted surprise, you're gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were fucking is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.(pg.263)" In Minot's story Lust you are play by play given the sequential events of a fifteen year old girls sex life. As portrayed by her thoughts after sex in this passage the girl is overly casual about the act of sex and years ahead of her time in her awareness of her actions. Minot's unique way of revealing to the reader the wild excursions done by this young promiscuous adolescent proves that she devalues the sacred act of sex. Furthermore, the manner in which the author illustrates to the reader these acts symbolizes the

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

In the story the author portrays the protagonist differently from the other characters because she talks about the physical appearance of other characters and when it comes to the narrator we have no idea what she looks like but she is developed partially through her relationship with other characters, although we the readers do come the find out that the narrator is around the age of 15-17 years old and we can assume that she has a bad relationship with her parents because first of all she talks about them maybe once or twice in the whole story and second of all we know that they sent her to boarding school so that alone proves that her relationship with them is lacking. As readers we also know that she has trouble opening up in the story she say “To open your heart. You open your legs but can’t, or don’t dare anyone, to open your heart” (237). This is a prime example of how author characterizes the protagonist as broken and emotionally damaged. And as the story progress the author becomes more honest with us the readers and herself, she starts the reveal the pain she is in and how lonely she feels. The narrator gives us an example of how she feels after sex by saying “After sex, you curl up like a shrimp, something deep inside you ruined, slammed in a place that sickness at

Junot Diaz, the author of “A Cheaters Guide to Love” writes his short story with many different references to anti-feminism. He writes about women in different ways to show them as powerless, and un-superior to the main character in the short story. From this short story, Diaz conveys the main characters ways when he shows the him talking about, the girl he calls to have sex with, the women at the yoga class, and the files read at the end of the story that show the fifty girls he cheated on his fiancé with. Diaz creates his main character and puts him in the second person to relate to the reader, but show his anti-feministic signs.

An example of this notion is shown in Hope Leslie when Governor Winthrop, the landlord, reacts to Hope, the tenant, coming home late and refuses to reveal her reason why: “...Winthrop was not accustomed to have his inquisitorial rights resisted by those in his own household, and he was more struck than pleased by Hope’s moral courage” (184). Evidently, Winthrop’s reaction proves that women with “moral courage” are unladylike because moral courage is a manly trait. On the other hand, Esther Downing, another character in Hope Leslie, embodies the cult of true womanhood. Esther’s mere look at her love interest Everell is described as “a look of...pleased dependence, which is natural... and which men like to inspire, because --perhaps -- it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority” (219). So, “Esther’s look … of dependence” confirms that the expectation that all women are supposed to have the same behavior, gestures and personality is meant to not only please men but to also hide their true form. Therefore, the cult of true womanhood presents an internal battle in female writers and Sedgwick presents this womanly struggle through the contrast between Hope and Esther. Society wants women to be quaint housewives but publishing a book defies the cult of true womanhood. Thus, defying the qualities rooted in the cult of true womanhood causes high risk of

Radical feminists believe that the patriarchy is the root cause of all oppression; one such radical feminist is Catherine Mackinnon. In her article, Sexuality, Mackinnon’s central argument pertains to the sexual objectification of women in society and how it is inescapable. Contemporary feminism is another form of feminism that focuses on inclusivity. In The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, Audre Lorde, a contemporary feminist, argues that feminist theory must incorporate the diversity of all women and their variant experiences. In this essay, I examine the strengths of Mackinnon’s argument, which are her comparison of women to fish, the objectification of women in pornography, and the idea of rape as sex and not just violence. I then present how these same strengths are points of critique for Audre Lorde because of Mackinnon’s failure to address the variety of experiences people face due to their differences in class, race, and sexuality.

“Woman” is a very popular theme in poetry and literature. The role of women through the ages changed tremendously. We can notice characters from being weak and controlled, to being strong and independent. There was always a certain behavior demanded or expected from women and they were playing their roles through their lives. But deep inside most of them wanted something more from life. A play “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen, poem “Living in Sin” by Adrienne Rich, and short play “Beauty” by Carla Bethany introduce us to four different women characters. Living in different times, they prove that women were always strong and independent even though they were not always treated that way. They showed a strong desire to break free from social restriction and stereotypes.

Annie Ernaux wrote Passion Simple in 1991 drawing from excerpts of the personal diaries she kept from 1988-1989, while engaged in an affair with a married man, known only as ‘A’. The subject Ernaux chose to write about differed from her previous novels, where abortion (Les Armoires vides, 1974), a woman’s position in family life (La Femme gelée, 1981), and parental relationships (Une Femme, 1989, La Place, 1990) were central. Instead, Ernaux chose to record an affair, and gave particular attention to the passion and desire she felt throughout. What this essay will examine is how female writing, specifically Ernaux’s writing, was permitted to represent a woman’s passion and desire. Firstly, by looking at language, and how it is used by the patriarchal