Daniel Mowery

Contemporary American Poetry and Prose

Midterm Essay #1
Dysfunctional Sex Erecting Itself in Literature
A great professor, Dr. Janice Fuller of Catawba College, once said that when one
majors in literature, they major in death. While true, there is another subject that is
unavoidable in most every great literary piece. Sometimes as drastic as death, and
sometimes more explicit, this recurring element is sex. Unfortunately for English majors,
the sex present in the novels is usually less than ideal, although there are exceptions. In
many cases the sex is dysfunctional in one way or another, though just describing sex as
dysfunctional is a broad term. In several novels, as in the contemporary ones to be
discussed, the sex dehumanizes at least one of the participants. Then there is the issue of
whether or not sex dominates the relationships of the texts. In the novels The Round
House, Beloved, The Shipping News, and Let the Great World Spin, do one more
characters experience sexual dehumanization, and does sex overshadow the stories? Or
is the existence of dysfunctional sex between the various relationships more atypical
respectively?
The first novel for inspection, The Round House by Louise Erdrich, answers the
first question in the opening ten pages. The reader is first met with the suspense of Joes
missing mother; she is found, but the suspense is not relieved, as the family discovers she
has been beaten and raped. The posttraumatic and psychological complications that
accompany rape victims are long lasting, affecting them, as well as those around them.
Some of the symptoms that rape victims face, that Joes mother exhibits in The Round

House, include numbness, paralyzing anxiety, suppression, and hapnophobia, or the fear
of being touched. Joes mother locks herself upstairs, and it takes her a long while before
she can come out. When she does, the family attempts to ease her back into social life,
but when the father approaches her from behind to embrace her, she is frightened. In that
moment, the family knows nothing can be the same. She feels dehumanized, as do most
rape victims. The community on the reservation knows as well, and Mooshum, Joes
grandfather, warns Joe that if they dont love her and support her proactively, she will
lose herself. Hear me now, Oops. She gotta come out. Dont leave her to sit. Dont let
her alone too much (33). The pain she faces after her trauma needs company to heal.
Despite the grotesque and appalling act that overshadows the entirety of the novel, the
rest of the relationships experience sex in a much lighter, in one case, pure way.
Erdrichs treatment of sex is only negative when dealing with the rape. The novel is
based around a young group of boys, and they see sex through their adolescent eyes. For
instance, Joe and company ogle Sonja, an attractive community member. Cappy
experiences sex himself, and though the parents of his girlfriend consider it as a mighty
sin and insult, Cappy sees it as pure. The Creator made us for each other. Me here.
Zelia there. The space was put between us by human error. But our hearts listened to
divine will. Our bodies, too. So fucking what? Every bit of what we did was made in
heaven. The Creator is goodness, brother. In his mysterious mercy he gave me Zelia.
The gift of our loveI cant throw it back in the face of the Creator, can I? (312).
Erdrich seems to portray sex as something natural, and good overall, sometimes even
worth a few bawdy jokes, as the community elders do. As long as there are no human
beings evil enough to force themselves on another, sex is a good, natural occurrence.

Toni Morrisons Beloved is a different song and dance. Sex and love are strange
topics to discuss in Beloved, as the two share complicated relationships. The characters
are afraid to love because of the pain of loss that is inevitable at every turn in the slavery
driven social system. Sex is bizarre as well. The Sweet Home boys, to keep themselves
from touching Sethe, have sex with the livestock. Its hard to go from there to discuss
whether sex is dehumanizing or abhorrent in the novel. Its also hard to say whether sex
dominates the novel or not. While it certainly is not the most important issue, it is
certainly well strewn about, though more focus seems to be on a mothers milk. There
are, however, grotesque sex scenes. The Sweet Home boys getting sweet on cattle is
certainly an example. More important to the story is when Sethe is forcibly milked and
raped by schoolteacher and the nephews. They used cowhide on you? And they took
my milk. They beat you and took you and you was pregnant? And they took my
milk! (20). The image of the scene is disturbing, and it exemplifies the horrific things
that occurred during this time period. Sex in the rest of the novel is not exactly ideal.
Paul D and Sethe have a loving physical relationship, but their first time is rocky and
dull. Eventually, their physical relationship gets to a comfortable point where everything
is nice. You come upstairs. Where you belongand stay there. He felt as though he
had been plucked from the face of a cliff and put down on sure ground. In Sethes bed he
knew he could put up with two crazy girlsas long as Sethe made her wishes known
(154). However, the only other significant sexual couple in the current events of the
novel is Paul D and Beloved, which is wrong on multiple levels, including an extreme
age difference and Beloved being Sethes child. Sex does not quite dominate Beloved,
but it certainly is a major factor. There seems to be no firm ground on which Morrison

rests her views on sex. At times it is disconcerting and wrong, but at times it can be full
of love, despite slavery making healthy sex almost impossible to attain.
As shown so far, the literature discussed has both aberrant sex and sex as a pure,
lovely, romantic force. These books follow a pattern of being walking contradictions. Of
the four novels, none is more so contradictory than The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.
In the scenes of current action, the sex, when it finally occurs between Wavey and
Quoyle, seems to be fine. Even the way sex is handled in the present doesnt seem to be
too negatively connoted. However, as soon as a character discusses the past, the
representation of sex is entirely different. The novel starts off mixing the two, the past
recollections and the present events as they describe Quoyles previous marriage to Petal,
a woman who married him for the size of his genitalia. It was no surprise that Petal felt
no obligation to remain loyal to her husband, and frequently went away for both long and
short pleasure trips with strange men. Once Quoyle and his family move to
Newfoundland, they find a history there that is surprising. Though the current inhabitants
are all swell folks, the family history of both the Pretty family and the Quolyes are strewn
with rape and incest. Quoyles aunt, who lived in Newfoundland before she moved away,
moves in with Quoyle and his daughters, and she confronts her own past there. She faces
the memories of being a little girl, raped by her own relative. He came onto the ice,
unbuttoning his pantsAnd although there was no place to go but around and around,
although she knew he would get her later if not now, she skated away, evaded his lunging
for a long timeThen the slide of feet, hot breath on her faceWell, that life had
hardened her (225-6). Rape seems to be a go-to element for literature. Though she
managed to get through the posttraumatic ordeal, she still faced repression and intimacy

issues. She named her dog, Warren, after a deceased same-sex lover, but gave the dog the
part of the womans name that sounded more masculine. While for the majority of the
novel sex is treated as troubling, when we get to the closing passages and a relationship
grows between Quoyle and Wavey, sex is less important, and falls second to love. Their
relationship brings out happiness and affection, and while the two do engage in
intercourse, it is amorous, and not hurtful as was Quoyles past marriage, or any
experiences the Quoyle and Pretty families faced. At a happy ending where Quoyle
finally feels alive, it is speculated, For ifa bird with a broken neck could fly away,
what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goats
blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a
crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit
of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery
(336-7). Sex and love are not the same, but they go hand in hand. Sometimes love is
painful, but if one can find the person they truly love and care about, it can be painless.
Thats the bliss that the characters deserve.
Each of the novels present complicating issues for discussing dysfunctional sex.
One book started with rape, the other two had rapes seeded throughout the pages, and all
three simultaneously present both ideal and aberrant sex. Let the Great World Spin by
Colum McCann will be no less difficult, as one of the most powerful characters is a
prostitute, and hookers and alternative vices surround any other narrative characters of
the novel. While its not rape, prostitution is hardly considered functional sex. Its hard
to describe the effects of that lifestyle on the character without quoting the character
herself, Tillie: They fuck you like theyre doing you a big favor. Every man wants a

whore to rescue, thats the knockdown truth. Its a disease in itself, you ask me. Then,
when theyve shot their wad they just zip up and go and forget about you. Thats
something fucked up in the head (218). Its interesting that Tillie knows that the life she
leads is atypical and wrong, but she only truly regrets it when she thinks of her daughter,
and that the men who come for her business are bigger messes than she is. They think
themselves better, but they are just as grotesque. Though her customers might
dehumanize her, she refuses to lose herself. She keeps her personality intact, as well as
her motherly feelings towards her daughter and her grandchildren, despite her inability to
protect them. In Tillies section of the novel, we see a darker, more deviant side to the
world of sex. We see it as a trade, a catalyst, a dirty but familiar occurrence. In another
portion of Let the Great World Spin, we see a happier, romantic version of intercourse.
A woman might think it thrilling to make love to a man who had never in his life made
love before, and it wasbut it was as if I was making love to a number of lost years, and
the truth is that he cried (277). Corrigan, the religiously distraught virgin, has fallen
in love with and given himself to Adelita. Their relationship is complex due to the vow
of abstinence that he took. Though it weighs on his conscience, he breaks the vow for
her, out of love. The rest of the chapter depicts Corrigan and Adelita going through a
mock familial weekend morning routine with Adelitas children. Everyone is happy, and
they all love each other. As Adelita says, The thing about love is that we come alive in
bodies not our own (275). As opposed to rape or prostitution, McCann shows sex and
love here as something that is more than unifying, it is binding. While each could
possibly find happiness on their own, and could find pleasure in one another, it is only
through another person that they live. If thats not romantic, then more prostitutes will be

needed. While in some sections of the story sex does dominate the happenings, it is
merely a part of a greater whole of depression, struggle, happiness, and the strength to get
through.
Oddly, the pattern of dichotomy remained consistent throughout all four novels.
Within the pages of each there are examples of dysfunctional sexin most novels many
more than one examplebut at least once in the story, the reader is presented with a
happy, functional sexual relationship that, though pre-marital or vow-breaking, is healthy
and full of love and caring. So what is it that literature is teaching its readers? It is that
sex is a natural act of nature, but its up to individual people to make it either functional
or dysfunctional, dominating or hardly present; make it beautiful, or a monstrosity.

Bibliography
Erdrich,Louise.TheRoundHouse.NewYork,NY:HarperCollins,2013.Print
McCann,Colum.LettheGreatWorldSpin.NewYork,NY:RandomHouse,Inc.,2009.
Print.
Morrison,Toni.Beloved.NewYork,NY:RandomHouse,Inc.,2004.Print.
Proulx,Annie.TheShippingNews.NewYork,NY:Scribner,2003.Print.