Joanna BurdeninverarityOctober 22 2012, 02:49:19 UTC
Oh yes, I agree that Joanna Burden wasn't meant to be particularly sympathetic, which was part of my point: Faulkner made all the women enemies, even when they were ostensibly acting in a "moral" manner. Joanna is a patronizing, self-righteous martyr who thinks herself holy because she's going to save the poor Negro, and the fact that she's whispering "Negro! Negro!" in his ear while they fuck was really fucked up and obviously meant to be.
I suppose it's somewhat ambigious, but I read their first intimate scene as rape, or dubious consent at best: Christmas intends to rape her, it's just not clear whether Joanna was unwilling.
She just watched as he blew out the lamp, thinking, 'Now she'll run.' And so he sprang forward, toward the door to intercept her. But she did not flee. He found her in the dark exactly where the light had lost her, in the same attitude. He began to tear at her clothes. He was talking to her, in a tense, hard, low voice: "I'll show you! I'll show the bitch!" She did not resist at all. It was almost as though she were helping him, with small changes of position of limbs when the ultimate need for help arose. But beneath his hands the body might have been the body of a dead woman not yet stiffened. But he did not desist; though his hands were hard and urgent it was with rage alone. 'At least I have made a woman of her at last,' he thought. 'Now she hates me. I have taught her that, at least.'
I suppose it's somewhat ambigious, but I read their first intimate scene as rape, or dubious consent at best: Christmas intends to rape her, it's just not clear whether Joanna was unwilling.
She just watched as he blew out the lamp, thinking, 'Now she'll run.' And so he sprang forward, toward the door to intercept her. But she did not flee. He found her in the dark exactly where the light had lost her, in the same attitude. He began to tear at her clothes. He was talking to her, in a tense, hard, low voice: "I'll show you! I'll show the bitch!" She did not resist at all. It was almost as though she were helping him, with small changes of position of limbs when the ultimate need for help arose. But beneath his hands the body might have been the body of a dead woman not yet stiffened. But he did not desist; though his hands were hard and urgent it was with rage alone. 'At least I have made a woman of her at last,' he thought. 'Now she hates me. I have taught her that, at least.'
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