Patterns of Male/Erotic Fantasy in Coover’s “The Babysitter”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18034/ajhal.v5i1.328Keywords:
Robert Coover, The Babysitter, Male Fantasy, Erotic, Binary Power Relation, Fetish, Psycho-Feminist ViewpointsAbstract
The paper aims at studying the patterns of the male fantasy in Robert Coover’s erotically charged short story, “The Babysitter”. The story centres on the image of a Babysitter stepping into a bathtub for having a shower while the phone in the living room rings, driving her out of the tub to answer it by the time the towel wrapping her pulls off giving a view of her naked body. In a rapid succession of one hundred and seven fragmented paragraphs, this image vividly recurs in and rolls up through the fantasies to fantasies of its male characters, blurring and overlapping these, creating fresh new versions of the story from the Babysitter being raped to the Babysitter saved from being raped. The study examines a clear line of development in the fantasies of each of these characters. Considering age, sexual orientation, experiments, adjustment and satisfaction, personality, and other socio-cultural variables, it (re)conceptualizes their fantasies as falling into certain patterns like obsessive, childlike, romantic, or deviant. And, finally and most importantly, it explores the binary power relation embedded in these fantasies wherein the Babysitter poses a fetish, an inanimate, sexualized object while the fantasies around her confirm to male/sexual power, violence, and masochistic pleasure. The research approaches the fantasies with psycho-feminist viewpoints.
Metrics
Downloads
References
Alber, J.et al. (2010), “Unnatural Narratives, Unnatural Narratology: Beyond Mimetic Models”, Narrative, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp.113-136. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.0.0042
Andersen, R. (1981), Robert Coover, Boston, Hall.
Byrne, D. (1977), “The imagery of Sex”, in Money, J. and Musaph, H. (Ed.), Handbook of Sexology, Amsterdam, Elsevier, pp. 327-350.
C., C.(2000), “The Darker Side of Fantasies”, Psych, Vol. 33, No. 12.
Carey, B. (2003), “Unfaithfully Yours: Cheating Hearts: Most men and Women Have Sexual Fantasies about People Who Are Not Their Partners”, LA Times: Arts & Life, Vol. D, No. 03.
Coover, R. (1969), “The Babysitter”, pp. 184-205. Web. 12 Dec. 2013, available at: http://social.rollins.edu/wpsites/sexwarandplague/files/2012/07/coover-babysitter.pdf (accessed 12 November, 2015).
Coover, R. (1987), “The Phantom of the Movie Palace”, A Night at the Movies or, You Must Remember This, New York, Collier Books.
Ehrenreich, B. (1977), “Foreword”, in Theweleit, Klaus, Theory and History of Literature, Vol. I, University of Minnesota Press.
Evenson, B. (2003), Understanding Robert Coover, USA, University of South Carolina Press, pp. 94.
Freud, S. (1905), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Standard Edition, Vol. VII, London, Hogarth.
Freud, S. (1914), On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement. Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, London, Hogarth.
Freud, S. (1915), Repression, Standard Edition, London, Hogarth.
Friday, N. (1998), Men in Love: Men’s Sexual Fantasies: The Triumph of Love over Rage, New York, Delta.
Giambra, L. M. and Martin, C. E. (1977), “Sexual Daydreams And Quantitative Aspects of Sexual Activity: Some Relations for Males across Adulthood”, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 6, pp.497-505. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541154
Gordon, L. (1983), Robert Coover: The Universal Fictionmaking Process, Carbondale, South Illinois University Press, pp. 120.
Hicks, T.V. and Leitenberg, H. (2001), “Sexual Fantasies About One’s Partner Versus Someone Else: Gender Differences in Incidence and Frequency”, Sex Res, Vol. 38, pp. 43-51. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490109552069
Kaplan, H. S. (October 1974), “Fiction and Fantasy: No-nonsense Therapy for Six Sexual Malfunctions”, Psychology Today, pp. 77-86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/e400642009-004
Kennedy, T. E. (1992), Robert Coover: A Study of the Short Fiction, New York, Twayne, 1992.
Leitenberg, H, and Henning, K. (1995), “Sexual Fantasy”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 117, No, 3, pp. 469-496. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.469
Morin, J. (1995),The Erotic Mind. New York.
Mulver, L. (1975), “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”Screen, Vol, 16, No.3, pp. 16-18.
Ryan, M. L. (2006),“From Parallel Universes to Possible Worlds: Ontological Pluralism in Physics, Narratology, and Narrative”, Poetics Today, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 633–74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-2006-006
Sonenberg, M. (1997), “On Reading “The Babysitter” for the 34th Time”, Not-Knowing and the Proliferation of Plot, available at: <http://www.flashpointmag.com/mayasonenberg.htm> (accessed 15 December 2015).
Theweleit, K. (1977), Male Fantasies: Women, Floods, Bodies, History, Vol. 1, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Wagman, M. (1967), “Sex Differences in Types of Daydreams”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.7, pp. 329-332. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025041
Wilson, G.D. (1997), “Gender Differences in Sexual Fantasy: An Evolutionary Analysis.” Person, Vol.22, pp. 27-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(96)00180-8
--0--
