Susan Minot / Lust the Essay

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There was no companionship, friendship or love.

The story is a good example of how teenage and young adulthood lust can go awry. Lust masks itself as love in the heat of the moment, but when the moment is gone, there is nothing but emptiness. The girl is tempted by lust all the time and she always gives into it because it tricks her into thinking she will feel good and she will feel whole; but lust does the opposite to girls, it takes away a piece of them, slice by slice, until there is only the carcass of a woman and she must work hard to fill the emptiness inside of her.

One of the most obvious aspects about the story is that the girl never talks about anything outside of her life -- just boys. She is in school and all we hear about that experience is the fact that the headmaster calls her in to be reprimanded for being very affectionate in public. He tells her that the forest is big and she can do whatever she needs to do outside of the public view. This is an interesting thing to say to a young woman and the comment actually seems to be representative of a bigger foible in society: basically, it is always the girl's fault and she needs to hide her indecencies. We don't know if the boy(s) was called in, but it seems as if Minot was making a comment about the way that women are labeled if they are with boys (i.e., slut) as opposed to how men are labeled with many women (i.e., stud). It also makes a comment about how society has not assisted in creating a world where woman feel more secure inside of themselves as opposed to only feeling secure or worthy when they are the object of a man's affections. This emptiness that the character feels has not been created by herself alone; society tells young girls that to be pretty, to be wanted is important -- perhaps the most important aspect in life. Our society puts good looks over confidence and self-sufficiency when it comes to women.

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It is because of this that the character does not have anything else to satiate her desires. All of her desires for anything else are deemed unimportant when stacked against how important it is for her to be wanted and admired. The character states numerous times that to be touched gently or to be looked at with lust is what puts her over the edge; from there on out she cannot say no to them. It is simply easier to give them what they want -- despite the repercussions of her actions.

The character states that she was good at other things

I could do some things well. Some things I was good at, like math or painting or even sports, but the second a boy put his arm around me, I forgot about wanting to do anything else, which felt like a relief at first until it became like sinking into muck (Minot 6).

Her friends seemed to envy her that she was always with a boyfriend, but they didn't see -- or couldn't imagine -- how miserable lust was making her. She describes the initial feelings as being a relief, but then she can't seem to set herself free from the lust. She has fallen into the trap that many young girls fall into -- and lust is a trap that keeps them going back for more, despite the fact that they don't want to be there anymore. They have begun to identify themselves as objects of men's affections and they live for the lust in the moment of passion and seem to be constantly surprised after when they are left with nothing. Minot's depiction of lust is a psychological look at what happens to girls raised in a society that judges them by the man whom they are with.

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