Intimacy

UNCUYO FF y L

PROFESORADO Y LICENCIATURA EN INGLES.

ESTUDIOS CULTURALES III – LITERATURA ANGLOFONA CONTEMPORANEA.

MODULO: NUEVAS ESCRITURAS.


Alumna: Marcela Abramo
Registro: 9307
Instructor: Prof. Jorge Flores
INTIMACY
By Hanif Kureishi

1) Quote from the novel “Intimacy” four paragraphs or part of paragraphs, and statebriefly what they mean to you.
• Page 34: “Desire is naughty and doesn’t conform to our ideals, which is why we have such a need of them. Desire mocks all human endeavour and makes it worthwhile. Desire is the original anarchist and undercover agent- no wonder people want it arrested and kept in a safe place. And just when we think we’ve got desire under control it lets us down or fills uswith hope. Desire makes me laugh because it makes fools of us all. Still, rather a fool than a fascist.”


I don’t think to “keep desire under control” makes us “fascists” when it doesn’t conform to our principles. We are human beings , we have intelligence, we know what is right and what is wrong. And we also have will; we have the possibility of choosing what is good for us. This iswhat makes us different from animals. Jay’s way of thinking can be dangerous since it might include a great variety of situations. One could, for example, take other people’s belongings just because one “desires” them.


• Page 36: “I stand here for ages looking around. I am afraid of getting too comfortable in my own house, as if, once I sit down, I will lose the desire foralteration.”


Why is he “afraid of getting too comfortable”? Isn’t it what we are all looking for? Does he want a different situation for the sake of “change” only? Who can guarantee that his new life style will be better?


• Page 42: “Father, six years dead, would have been horrified by my skulking off. Such an abandonment would have seemed undignified at the very least. Susanused to go to him when we were fighting and he would take her side, phoning me and saying, “Don’t be cruel boy.” He said she was “all in one”. She had everything I could want…He didn’t see that the women could take care of themselves. The man had the power and had to be protective.”


This passage reflects how relationships have changed in a relatively short period of time. In Jay’sgeneration they have become lighter. If things don’t work, couples just break up. Divorces have increased lately. We see lack of tolerance, respect, effort. So much so that many people decide not to get married; if things go wrong, it is easier to leave. Jay and Susan’s relationship is not intolerable. In his father’s eyes, Susan was the perfect partner for him. She had all the virtues a womancould have.


• Page 31: “For Aristotle the aim of life is “successful activity” or happiness, which for him is inseparable from, though not the same as, pleasure. My unhappiness benefits no one; not Susan, not the children, not myself. But perhaps happiness –that condition in which there is completion, where one has everything, and music too- is an acquired taste. Certainly I haven’tacquired it in this house. Perhaps I haven’t sought it or let myself feel it. Doubtless there have been opportunities. That afternoon when…Their smiling faces. Her hand as it…”


This is the first time Jay recognizes that it is probably himself who has not taken the time to look for happiness and pleasure in the little, yet important things of everyday life, which he certainly has athis home.



2) State two reasons why you feel he is right in what he is about to do.


Readers of this essay might consider it “feminist” but I assure this is not the case. It has been written by a woman in her forties, with three young children, who has experimented how intensely and happily they live when Mum and Dad are together. Considering Jay’s attitude in the novel “Intimacy” by...