Susan Minot's Lust
Literary Analysis of Susan Minot’s “Lust” In Susan Minot’s short story “Lust” the reader is taken through the journey of one girl’s various relationships, some better than others, watching the love fade away. The narrator talks about her first boyfriends, the first one she saw nude, the fast illegal car driving one, etc. She talks about college and the various experiences she had with guys there. She is starting to feel “watered down.” There is no more emotion in her relationships. She ends with a sad truthful ending about lust, how the love fades away. Lust is told in the first person. Only one character’s thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are expressed in the work, that character is the narrator. The narrator talks about how she feels
certain nights when she is with a boy. “...the dark would come in and there’d be a cave. You make out the dim shape of the window and feel yourself become a cave, filled absolutely with air or with a sadness that wouldn’t stop.” She describes how she felt like a cave in a way that the reader could relate or understand how she was feeling. The entirety of the story is flashback after flashback, jumping through the narrator’s timeline picking out every relationship. The flashbacks give the reader a look into the narrator’s past at events that occurred before the current time of the story. Every paragraph in the story is a flashback except for the final paragraphs. “Roger was fast. In his illegal car we drove to the reservoir… He got kicked out sophomore year.” The narrator uses the past tense. The words was, drove, kicked all indicate the situation happened in the past. The narrator is a dynamic character. Her emotions and feelings have changed by the end of the story. The reader can see the narrator change as her past becomes more recent. She knows something has changed and expresses her findings in the last paragraphs:
It starts this way:
You stare into their eyes...You do everything they want. Then comes after. After when they don’t look at you… Or if they do turn, their gaze is altogether changed. They are surprised… You’re gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were with* is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.
*’with’ is the replacement word to make this paper school appropriate (also more comfortable for the student)
The narrator goes from being in love a lot to have nothing to give in a relationship. Love is lost when lust is desired more. The narrator can feel she losing something. “Then you start to get tired. You begin to feel diluted, like watered-down stew.” She gives a pretty good idea as to how it feels as the love is fading away. “You wonder about things feeling a little off-kilter. You begin to feel like a piece of pounded veal.” After the love is lost is there any lust left?
certain nights when she is with a boy. “...the dark would come in and there’d be a cave. You make out the dim shape of the window and feel yourself become a cave, filled absolutely with air or with a sadness that wouldn’t stop.” She describes how she felt like a cave in a way that the reader could relate or understand how she was feeling. The entirety of the story is flashback after flashback, jumping through the narrator’s timeline picking out every relationship. The flashbacks give the reader a look into the narrator’s past at events that occurred before the current time of the story. Every paragraph in the story is a flashback except for the final paragraphs. “Roger was fast. In his illegal car we drove to the reservoir… He got kicked out sophomore year.” The narrator uses the past tense. The words was, drove, kicked all indicate the situation happened in the past. The narrator is a dynamic character. Her emotions and feelings have changed by the end of the story. The reader can see the narrator change as her past becomes more recent. She knows something has changed and expresses her findings in the last paragraphs:
It starts this way:
You stare into their eyes...You do everything they want. Then comes after. After when they don’t look at you… Or if they do turn, their gaze is altogether changed. They are surprised… You’re gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were with* is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.
*’with’ is the replacement word to make this paper school appropriate (also more comfortable for the student)
The narrator goes from being in love a lot to have nothing to give in a relationship. Love is lost when lust is desired more. The narrator can feel she losing something. “Then you start to get tired. You begin to feel diluted, like watered-down stew.” She gives a pretty good idea as to how it feels as the love is fading away. “You wonder about things feeling a little off-kilter. You begin to feel like a piece of pounded veal.” After the love is lost is there any lust left?