Random Thoughts- Love_Lust

Gustave Flaubert's Emma is a complicated character and the setting is confusing. I tried to dissect her love and lust profile. Some of the points that I could list out to understand her character are the following.

1. She doesn't feel any love for Charles, her husband
2. She lusts after men both rich (Rodolphe) and poor (Leon)
3. She doesn't feel any maternal love towards Berthe, her daughter
4. She is a materialist and addicted to that
5. She doesn't have any words to express her love
6. She isn't smart enough to see through the game of Lherueux, the shopkeeper
7. She is smart and quick witted enough to give excuses to her husband when her affairs were about to be exposed
8. She is seduced by Rodolphe like ruling class seducing poor farmers and
9. by Leon like an actor seducing his audience

From (1), (2), (5), (6) and (8). I would say she's a heterosexual, inamoural woman victim of manipulations of capitalist and feudal patriarchal societies acting in their own ways.

However, her lack of love to her daughter appears to be added to give her somewhat a negative character. The areas of the brain that gets turned on during sexual love, romantic love and parental love are mostly mutually exclusive. Even if one lacks romantic love, I suppose that doesn't make her/him automatically lose parental love.

(4) is rather strange. The brain region that overlaps with addiction is love and not lust. But the character is inamoural so I suppose she shouldn't have any addictions too.

(7), I suppose, again, added to give her a negative touch. Or it may be that she's a product of  the feudal patriarchal society where the person is dumb in front of a stronger one and manipulative of a weaker one. So, it might not be a negative character and even here too she's a victim of patriarchal thought that she's imbibed (and resulting in victimization of the weaker characters).

(9) is a direct message that by taking seriously make belief world of dramas and stories people become irrational. Or in other words by conquering their crave for love seducers can make them open up their lust. But being an inamoural woman Emma shouldn't be succumbing to the charms of the words in stories and if my characterization as an inamoural is incorrect then Madame Bovary should have been a story of love instead of lust( Emma found again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage). Even the shy Leon gains her after he becomes "confident with women" or after he masters feudal-patriarchal game of conquest.

Source:
Gutenberg Project

Random Thoughts - Love_Lust

Based on my classifications of human love/lust orientations, I would propose the character Nick in 'The Great Gatsby' is basically a confused Heterosexual-Homoamoural.

The general impression because of his sexual encounter with Mr. McKee and his closeness with Gatsby, I suppose, is that of a homosexual male. His breakups with girlfriends give an idea that he is not really into girls. But I would think it's basically a confusion he developed because of incompatible orientation.

I believe the following excerpts give an idea of his orientation and because of it his confusion about his sexuality.


Chapter 2: Nick meets McKee at a party
"I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon."

"Mr. McKee was a pale, feminine man from the flat below."

"'Keep your hands off the lever', snapped the elevator boy.
   'I beg your pardon,' said Mr. McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know that I was touching it'."
   
    "...I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.
      Beauty and the Beast...Loneliness....Old Grocery Horse...Brook'n Bridge...."

The sexual encounter has been shown in a negative light. Nick wasn't in control of the situation. McKee basically groped and then raped the drunken Nick. Obviously, that would be the last time he had been drunk. However, McKee looks feminine. Thus incident is of confusion and not of clear exploitation.

Chapter 3: Nick narrates his brief affair
"I even had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in the accounting department, but her brother began throwing mean looks in my direction, so when she went on her vacation in July. I let it blow quietly away."
Very clearly Nick is attracting homosexual males. The lack of heteoamourality makes it easy for him to leave the girl as he doesn't not want unwanted attention from the brother.

Chapter 4: Jordon reminisces her teenage past
"I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind, and whenever this happened the red, white and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said tut-tut-tut-tut, in a disapproving way."
This is a sexually teasing description. Curiously, Nick also describes Jordon as a masculine figure. The character Jordon appears to be created with an idea of both masculine and feminine traits. Thus apparently satisfying Nick's heterosexual and homoamoural orientation.

Chaper 6: Nick listens to Gatsby's passionate encounter with Daisy and remembers his shame
"At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was compete."

"Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommmunicable forever."

Nick clearly understands that the passionate encounter between Gatsby and Daisy (heterosexual-heteroamoural) was everything that his experience was not. Or there was no incarnation with McKee.

 The way incidents happen and characters describe, I would think the narrator is positively a heterosexual and homoamoural male.

Payyannur Pattu -1

It takes ten minutes for me to read a single line of a Malayalam text and another ten minutes to decipher it. As of now, I have read two lines of payyannUr pATTu. But I am happy that I have come across 'ba' instead of 'va' in the first line itself. According to the editor notes, 'va' and 'ba' interchange freely in the poem.

Incidentally, oldest extant Malayalam works (vaDakkan pATTugaL) come from north Malabar (Kolathunadu or present day Kasaragod and Kannur districts) region or particularly from Kannur region. They are dated from 13th century to 16th century. These folk songs or so-called ballads are about personalities from merchant, cultivator and toddy tapper communities. However, the bards who created them need not be from the same communities. Payyannur Pattu, a story involving a merchant woman, was developed, performed and preserved by washermen[1].

In my previous post, I quoted that Vadakkan Pattugal do not show any Sanskrit or Tamil influence. However, I am not sure about Payyannur Pattu(part of Vadakkan Pattugal or northern ballads). I suppose it shows Sanskrit or Prakrit(that reached the region of Kerala) influence.

Reference:
1. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia By Sheldon I. Pollock (Google Books, limited preview)

Update: I made a mistake (that I have deleted). I thought Payyannur is in Kasaragod district but it turns out that it's in Kannur district. I visited Payyannur during my primary school days to attend a wedding. At that time all the distance I travelled within Kerala was Kasaragod. Or so I thought. So I had this notion that Payyannur was in Kasaragod.