Literature of the Picaresque – Writing

Joanna Katehis “Caught Between the Lust for a Woman and the Yearn for a Mother”

JPeer

November 14, 2016

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Joanna Katehis

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 ENG 2850

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 Professor Peer

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 November 14, 2016

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 Caught Between the Lust for A Woman and the Yearn For A Mother

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 Dear Reader,

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 The passage I chose to write about is when Mustafa meets Mrs. Robinson in Cairo for the first time as a young boy. During this meeting, something that he’s never experienced before happens to him – a sexual awakening. While dissecting this passage, I am attempting to shine light on why he cannot emotionally attach himself to the women he encounters with during his adult life. There seems to be a connection to his inability to love anyone other than in a sexual manner, because he did not experience affectionate love from his mother as a child in order for him to know what true love is.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 My points are supported throughout pages 3-5. Hopefully my evidence and analysis properly support my claims and thesis.

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 Joanna Katehis

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 ENG 2850

¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 Professor Peer

¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 November 14, 2016

¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 Caught Between the Lust for A Woman and the Yearn For A Mother

¶ 14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 Mustafa meets Mrs. Robinson: passage pg 22-23

¶ 15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 When I arrived in Cairo I found Mr. Robinson and his wife awaiting me, Mr. Stockwell (the headmaster in Khartoum) having informed them I was coming. The man shook me by the hand and said “How are you, Mr. Sa’eed? ‘Very well thank you, Mr. Robinson,’ I told him. Then the man introduced me to his wife, and all of a sudden I felt the woman’s arms embracing me and her lips on my cheek. At that moment, as I stood on the station platform amidst a welter of sounds and sensations, with the woman’s arms round my neck, her mouth on my cheek, the smell of her body – a strange, European smell – tickling my nose, her breast touching my chest, I felt – I, a boy of twelve – a vague sexual yearning I had never previously experienced. I felt as though Cairo, that large mountain to which my camel had carried me, was a European woman just like Mrs. Robinson, its arms embracing me, its perfume and the odour of its body filling my nostrils. In my mind her eyes were the colour of Cairo: grey-green, turning at night to a twinkling light that of a firefly. ‘Mr. Sa’eed, you’re a person quite devoid of a sense of fun,’ Mrs. Robinson used to say to me and it was true that I never used to laugh. ‘Can’t you ever forget your intellect?’ she would say, laughing, and on the day they sentenced me at the Old Bailey to seven years’ imprisonment, I found no bosom except hers on which to rest my head. ‘Don’t cry, dear child,’ she had said to me patting my head. They had no children. Mr. Robison knew Arabic well and was interested in Islamic thought and architecture, and it was with them that I visited Cairo’s mosques, its museums and antiquities. The district of they loved best was as-Azhar. When our feet wearied of the walking about we’d take ourselves off to a café close by the al-Azhar Mosque where we would drink tamarind juice and Mr. Robinson would recite the poetry of al Ma’arri. At that time I was wrapped up in myself and paid no attention to the love they showered on me. Mrs. Robinson was a buxom woman and with bronze complexion that harmonized with Cairo, as though she were a picture tastefully chosen to go with the colour of the walls in a room. I would look at the hair of her armpits and would have a sensation of panic. Perhaps she knew I desired her. But she was sweet, the sweetest woman I’ve known; she used to laugh gaily and was as tender to me as a mother to her own son.

¶ 16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 1 Mustafa’s first introduction to Mrs. Robinson awakens a strange mix of emotions for him as a young boy. He is at the tender age of 12, young enough to still desire the love and affection of a mother, yet old enough (prepubescent) to start yearning a woman in a sexual manner. Why would a young boy begin to have sexual urges towards a woman that shows love and affection towards a young boy as if he was her own son?

¶ 17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 After having spent some time with her, Mustafa mentions a sense of panic that overcomes him when he looks at Mrs. Robinson “Perhaps she knows I desire her”. Yet, right after he describes “But she was sweet, the sweetest woman I’ve known; she use to laugh gaily and was as tender to me as a mother to her own son.”(pg23)

¶ 18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 2 This may have something to do with the relationship he had with his own mother. Mustafa’s father had died several months before he was born, he was left without brothers or sisters, and therefore he was raised solely by his mother. The relationship he had with her was described as cold “It was as if she were some stranger on the road with whom circumstances had chanced to bring me. Perhaps I was an odd creature, or maybe it was my mother who was odd – I don’t know. We used to not talk much. “(pg18) Mustafa never described his relationship with his mother to be affectionate; no hugs, no kisses, no encouragement or congratulations when he made good decisions for himself. She barely smiled at him or gave him order in the home. “I would read, sleep, go out and come in, play outside the house, loaf around the streets and there would be no one to order me about.”(pg18) There is no doubt Mustafa’s mother loved him, she simply did not know how to show her love for him in the way a young boy may have needed growing up. A young boy who is not given the nurturing love that is necessary from a mother throughout childhood can easily grow up not being able to distinguish an act of love given by a family member and lust given by a sexual partner which can also be a different “love”.

¶ 19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 2 Mustafa had never been shown affection the way Mrs. Robinson had shown immediately upon his arrival to Cairo. “Then the man introduced me to his wife, and all of a sudden I felt the woman’s arms embracing me and her lips on my cheek. At that moment, as I stood on the station platform amidst a welter of sounds and sensations, with the woman’s arms round my neck, her mouth on my cheek, the smell of her body – a strange, European smell – tickling my nose, her breast touching my chest, I felt – I, a boy of twelve – a vague sexual yearning I had never previously experienced.”. Being that he took a nurturing act of love and confused it with his young sexual urges. This may have been a turning point for him where even during his sexual peak as an adult, he had multiple sexual partners in which he remained emotionally detached, but was very active sexually. This could have been the affectionate void he had from his mother in which he was trying to fill through sexual encounters. It seems as if he’s constantly looking for the stirred up affection that was awoken when Mrs. Robinson hugged and kissed him as a young boy; filling a void through his promiscuity.

¶ 20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 1 No parent is perfect and it’s very clear that Mustafa’s mother has experienced hardships in her life. She had lost her husband while pregnant with her first child, left to raise him alone. It was never mentioned if she remarried, therefore it is no surprise that she would have difficulty expressing her true emotions, hiding through her “many masks”. When Mustafa made a wise decision to enroll in school, his mother barely cracked a smile to show joy or approval “Her lips parted momentarily as though she wanted to smile, then she shut them and her face reverted to its usual state: a thick mask, or rather a series of masks.” (pg21) Going from a relationship like that, onto the overwhelmingly loving Mrs. Robinson are two extremes. Mustafa did realized that both Mr. and Mrs. Robinson showered him in love as they never had children of their own, yet even so, he was still detached and did not appreciate it all. “At the time I was wrapped up in myself and I paid no attention to the love they showered on me.” (pg23)

¶ 21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 1 It is quite common for individuals who were raised with a difficult or different childhood to develop emotional issues within their relationships as adults. Mustafa’s meeting with Mrs. Robinson may have been the trigger for him to chase women throughout his adulthood in order fill a missing void within himself. Due to his disconnect, it was easy for him to take advantage and not realize the harm he was doing to the multiple women in his life, even after their deaths and the murder he committed. How would one be able to endure this lifestyle without a severe emotional disconnect? It can be argued that his sexual urges were a form of emotion, or his urges were simply that…urges, lust and a selfish need to satisfy only himself without caring about any of the parties involved.