Violence and Sexuality in Cal

Violence and Sexuality in Cal Bernard Mac Laverty's novel, Cal, tells the story of how nineteen-year-old Cal McCluskey fall in love with a Catholic widow, Marcella Morton. As later turns out, Marcella's husband was a RUC reserve police man whom Cal earlier helped to murder by being the getaway driver for Crilly, the IRA hitman. Their love remains unattainable mainly because of Cal's involvement in the murder, although he never tells Marcella the truth, the novel ends with Cal's arrest. Throughout the narrative we can find scenes where violence and sexuality fuses, in what follows, I would like to consider these scenes and interpret their significance in the novel. The first instance when sexuality and violence becomes linked together is years before the actual plot. Cal recalls a school incident, when a teacher, Father Durkin assigns Crilly (who makes Cal his accomplice) to find and punish the boy who has been circulating pornographic photos.
In this case the violence is much stronger than sexuality 'Crilly [...] thumped his knee into his balls [...] Crilly cracked his forehead with his knee again. The boy slewed sideways and banged his ear and the side of his head on the partition as he fell. Cal heard a dull bone noise as Smicker's back crunched on the delft horseshoe of the lavatory bowl.' In spite of this, the sexuality is represented lightly, only on pictures. As the plot progresses sexuality will strengthen and violence weaken. It is worth to mention that this scene has another importance in the plot. As Richard Haslam argues there is a very clear parallelism between this and the scene of Robert Morton's murder. A higher in rank person (a teacher/ IRA commander) instructs Crilly to complete a task ( the detection and punishment of Smickers/ the killing of Robert Morton) which he effectively carries out. Both Durking and Skeffington present moral/ ideological explanation for acts of violence, what is more, on each occasion Cal is a reluctant accomplice, who subsequently experiences guilt. According to Haslam, the next incident where violence and sexuality are linked together happens when Cal -because of his frustration that the job he took does not provide opportunity to see Marcella- decides to meet her in the library. In this case the mode of violence is the 'voyeuristic gaze:' 'She turned sideways to Cal, scanning the shelf. The profile of her breast become a plateau touched at the tip by the book. Cal wanted to close his eyes. To make a shutter image of it [...]' It is debatable whether Cal commits an act of violence with being an eyewitness to this somewhat erotic scenery. In the next scene, however, Cal's intention to peep on his obsession becomes more obvious and violent. After he and his father had been burned out of their home by loyalists, Cal settles in the abandoned cottage on the Morton farm in order to be closer to Marcella and farther from Crilly and Skeffington. One night at the farm Cal spies on Marcella while the woman prepares for bath. At first he sees only the 'vaguest movements' of her, but as he makes his way onto the roof eventually one of her breasts come into 'his line of vision.' The act of violence is less serious in this case. Compared to the previous scene where physical violence was present, here Cal only violates Marcella's privacy. As for sexuality, it stays on the level of vision, but now it does not appear on a piece of paper, but in front of him live. What is more, this time the “model” is not some stranger 'slightly out-of-focus women [...] smiling sheepishly', but the object of his obsession. Not surprisingly Cal's reaction to sexuality is noticeable different because of this. After taking the photos from Smickers Cal is afraid to look at them until Crilly passes them over. When it is Marcella who gets into somewhat erotic situation, he tries 'to make a shutter image of it', like he did in the library as well. Not longer after Cal gets back to the cottage from his voyeuristic adventure, the British soldiers break in upon him and interrogate him, because Mrs Morton noticed the light of a match in the cottage. As Haslam has noted 'his beating becomes an indirect punishment for both his voyeurism and his involvement in Morton's murder.' What is more, there is a parallel between this and the closing scenes. His voyeurism is punished, indirectly, with beating, but later, when Cal makes love to Marcella his indirect punishment is escalated to prison. The punishment because of his feelings for the woman whom husband he helped to kill seems inevitable. On one occasion when Cal is left alone in Marcella's home we learn about Cal's imagination of Marcella.
He imagined her as the Sleeping Beauty in a drugged coma and how he would kiss her and touch her without her responding. How he could cup her cotton blouse against her breast and feel the warmth of her living. She would be displayed for him so that he could look at and touch any part of her. And she would not know it was he, Cal, who was the slayer of her husband.
In this passage, up to this point visually represented, sexuality is supplemented with the desire for the physical contact. However, this contact would be made without Marcella's knowing, which would make this an act of violence. As opposed Marcella's identification with Sleeping Beauty, on the basis of her unawareness of Cal's crime and her beauty, Cal is associated with Quasimodo on the ground of the ugliness what he had done. Later his imagination is confronted with reality, during their love making, and it turns out that two does not overlap. The climax of the narrative occurs when Cal finally achieves sexual unity with Marcella. The extent to which violence and sexuality was represented in the firs scene, here becomes the reverse of it. In the first case violence was present in a physical way (beating), now sexuality becomes physical. The presence of violence is ensured by the haunting images of the murder, like sexuality was presented on images (pornographic photos) in the case of the school incident. In his article Haslam has stated that 'The real Marcella's actions do not match the vulnerable passivity of the creature in his fantasy. The fact that the object of his gaze is awake and 'all the time staring unblinkingly at him' (138) unnerves him to the point where Cal cannot look Marcella in the eyes during their love-making.' However the real Marcella's actions, indeed, do no match the passivity of Sleeping Beauty in his fantasy, but it is rather the recurring images of the murder that unnerves him. After the scenes of the murder came back to him, Marcella notices his nervousness.
In his darkness he saw her husband genuflect and the sudden soiling of the wallpaper behind him. The unreal sound of the cap gun. Marcella touched between his thighs and he felt shame. 'Don't worry', she said. 'We have all the time in the world.' Cal tried to clear his head, shaking it as if he had a tic.
As I have stated earlier when Cal gets close to Marcella, the indirect punishment is bound to happen, like it did after spying on her in her bathroom. As Cleary argues ' The novel's sexual fantasy of two Catholics finding love in a Protestant bed must be paid for in the coin of a morality tale – with repentance and atonement. Cal accepts that their love is unattainable and gratefully welcomes to be beaten ' to within an inch of his life.' To conclude, in Cal, the theme of violence and sexuality is often linked together. The individual scenes where these themes are presented divide the novel into three parts. First, violence is stronger than sexuality (school incident) in this part of the narrative violence is often presented mostly by the IRA members Crilly and Skeffington and his love with Marcella was in an early stage. Then sexuality and violence comes to somewhat even level (spying on Marcella) the presence of the IRA members fold, but Cal does not feel secure he expects Crilly to show up and he becomes obsessed with Marcella, but his love is yet unrequited. In the last instance sexuality becomes the dominant theme over violence, as Cal achieves sexual unity with Marcella, and Crilly and Skeffington seems to vanish for good. Cal's and Marcella's love is the metaphor of the united Ireland which is flourishing while violence declines, but this idea remains unattainable because of the reappearance of the violence associated with the IRA. The novel suggests that the idea of the united Ireland cannot be achieved as long as political violence is present in Northern Ireland.