Examples Of Lust In Short Story

What is lust? Lust is a strong sexual desire. Superficially, the young woman in the story would seem to be lustful, but in her case, this lust is not a strong desire for sex but rather a desire to belong. Her random and haphazard sexual encounters spring only from her desire to be accepted. When she talks about being seated between Mack and Eddie and “they were having a fight about something. I’ve a feeling about me” (Meyer 276), she seems actually happy to be wanted and fought over all the while degrading herself. Her lust is the desire to be valued, to be appreciated, and to be seen. She thinks she has to give up who she is to be accepted and until the end of the story, she doesn’t seem to acknowledge that her actions are not having the desired

She shies away from asserting herself and allows Peter to dictate the terms of their affair, allowing herself to be “tried out” as one would test drive a car. “Peter was trying to decide, as he had been for the past year, between his wife and myself as his permanent life partner” (Meyer 173). In this statement, she acknowledges that the affair has been going on for a year and with no apparent resolution in sight. As the story progresses, she begins to see more clearly all the things she had previously locked away in her mind. Peter is very indecisive and rude. He complains constantly, “Come all this way… and you can’t even see the footprints properly” (Meyer 173) and “everything in this country comes with cucumber salad” (Meyer 174) demonstrating not only his general unhappiness, but also how little consideration he gives to the narrator. He occasionally degrades her, “he said I had a good mind but not a first-class mind … I didn’t take it as an insult” (Meyer 173). Mr. Piper is clearly not fully invested in the relationship. To him, it is just a fling with some woman he is “shack[ing] up” (Meyer 174) with while she considered it much more by her different word choice, “make love” (Meyer 174). The fact that these scenarios had likely been a part of the narrator’s life for the past year

This conversation about the war leads her to the realization that she can choose to stop this affair and “make the difference of a million, or so” (Meyer 175). She no longer says she loves him but instead says “I adored him. I loved to be seen with him” (Meyer 175). She now knows that this affair is not worth the trouble. She frees herself from this invisible barrier and discovers her self worth. Just as the Archduke lost his way, which led to his death, she also lost her way. She was able to see the truth and correct it, to leave him for good. Weldon masterfully weaves the setting of the story in such a way that the events taken place in the present parallel the events of the past. She points out that people are sometimes blinded by a faux reality and need to escape to a distant place to be brought