In novels it is common for the concept of love or sexuality to be present. This idea can present itself in many forms, and in both Jerzy Kosinski’s book Being There and Angela Carter’s book The Bloody Chamber this is illustrated. In both books the concept of love and sexuality can be seen in both dark and light contexts, with highly varying situations. In Being There and The Bloody Chamber the presence of genuine love, a lack of genuine love, and sexuality are all explored. In Being There the main character Chance seems to be incapable of love.
People who are ready to love him surround chance, but despite this he never reciprocates the feeling because he is not sure what love really is. Throughout the novel Chance tries to compare the affection being shown to him by others to what he has seen on television because he is never let out of the garden he tends to. Chance inherits problems mentally from his mother, and these problems cause destruction to the “soft soil of his brain, the ground from which all his thoughts shot up (8).
As Chance has spent his whole life in the garden or watching TV, he has never had the possibility of being loved or feeling love before. All of the behavior shown to s new to him, and he does not understand what is being done. In Carter’s story The Erl-King, the main female has a love for the man she meets in the forest, but that love is not reciprocated. Whenever he calls for her she shows up for his bidding, and after he has his way with her she is sent home. Eventually, she realizes that he does not love her, and only wishes to cage her up to keep.
Upon this discovery she feels “shaken with a terrible fear and I did not know what to do for | loved him and yet I had no wish to join the whistling congregation kept in his cages (90). ” After this she decides that her freedom is far greater than her love for him, and strangles her love while he sleeps in her lap. Another case of a lack of genuine love in one of Carter’s stories is The Snow Child. In this story a Count is on his way home with his wife, and while with her he begins to wish for another girl who he deems to be better than his wife.
As soon as she appears the Count is overjoyed, but his wife’s first thought is, “how shall I be rid of her? (92). ” Because of his desire for a different woman even with his wife present, it can be assumed that the Count does not truly love his wife. Based on the wife’s jealousy of the younger woman, their relationship can be seen as a toxic one in which neither one of them are happy. While both of these books present cases for a lack of love, they both also have instances of genuine love in them.
In Being There the love that Mr. Rand and EE share is so genuine that even though he is dying, Mr. Rand still worries about EE’s well being after he passes away. He even pulls Chance aside and tells him, “if anything should happen to me, please do take care of her. She needs someone like you (72). ” By saying this Mr. Rand making sure that EE is taken care of and allowing her to move on after he passes. He cares more about her happiness than any feelings of bitterness or resentment for Chance or any other man who may take his place. The Bloody Chamber also presents an example of genuine love.
While at the beginning of the story the female character is married to a man that has a nasty habit of killing his wives, through this she meets a piano tuner. They begin to develop a relationship, and after her former husband is killed they begin a life together with her mother. Even though she gains a mark on her face because of her previous engagement and she is happy he cannot see it, she is still assured because she knows that he can see her clearly with his heart. In Carter’s story The Lady of the house of Love the vampiress and the soldier also share a form of genuine love.
This is illustrated by the fact that when reading her tarot cards, the vampiress has drawn the same cards every day. Once the young man arrives she casts herself different cards: one of death and one of love. The young man is drawn to her, and makes plans to help her. By the time he awakens the next day, however, she is dead. Sexuality is also explored greatly in both of these books. In Kosinski’s book Chance is as clueless to this issue as he is to most other situations he find himself in.
When EE attempts to seduce him he does not react to her at all, causing her to become upset at the thought that she cannot excite him and that he does not love her. After confronting Chance, he simply tells her, “I like to watch you (115). ” In another encounter where a man tries to seduce Chance after a party, he tells him the same thing. Through this whole thing Chance gets confused as to what it is they are doing, but he chooses to watch them as he would a TV because it is one of the only things that he knows how to do. Sexuality is a topic that is explored highly in Carter’s tales.
In her story The Bloody Chamber, the innocence and virginity of the young woman in the book is emphasized greatly and is found to be the main reason her husband is drawn to her. On the night of their wedding the two retreat back to their island where later she loses her virginity, which Carter describes as “a dozen husbands impaled a dozen brides while the mewing gulls swung on invisible trapezes in the empty air outside (17). ” In this story Carter uses this brutal description to show the lack of love in the act being performed, and how raw and sexual it really is.
In another one of Carter’s stories called Puss-in-Boots sex is Puss’s answer when he finds that his friend has fallen in love with a woman. When his friend becomes listless as a result of his infatuation for this woman, he develops a scheme for his friend to sleep with the woman. Once this act is done, his friend becomes listless once more because he is not actually with this woman. The story ends in the man that the woman was formerly with passing away, and Puss’s friend and the woman quickly after having sex again.
While the language that is used in this book to describe the act is once again crude, the fact that the man is not simply satisfied by sex could point to Carter believing that there is more to love than sex. In The Snow Child Carter also relies on sex to portray her story. After the Count’s dream woman appears and dies, he weeps and, “unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member into the dead girl (92). ” Throughout all of this his wife bears witness, and even while raping the dead girl does not stop her husband.
In Carter’s book love is portrayed in many ways, but overall the tone seems to be in a more heavy or serious tone. When her stories are lacking love the absence is so obvious that it can become painful for even the reader to imagine. On the other hand, when the love is present it can often come in the most unconventional form possible that the reader may question whether it is truly there. In Kosinski’s book love takes a more lighthearted tone, simply because the book is portrayed in a child like state of mind because of Chance.
While love is still there, the reader may be blind to it because Chance is often blind to situations in which he has not encountered or seen on television. As Kosinski and Carter show in their novels, love and sexuality can be seen in many different lights. As the concept is so common in novels, the situations in which it occurs can be highly varying as well. Whether it is shown in a positive light or negative, both of these authors have a way of evoking a feeling from their readers on this subject.