Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - László Dányi: Interpretations of Sexuality in William Styron's Sophie's Choice

Stingo meets Leslie several times, and he always has high hopes, before meeting her he is always "in a state of semi-arousal" (SC 200). He recalls memories of his erections. By remembering these situations he stimulates himself up to a higher and higher level, from where it is getting more and more painful to fall down into the deeper and deeper hole of frustrations. Ironically, the pain is not only spiritual but physical as well. I can assume I am suffering from a case of 'severe acute glossitis,' an inflamed condition of the tongue's surface which is of traumatic origin but doubtless aggravated by bacteria, viruses and all sorts of toxicity resulting from five or six hours of salivary exchange unprecedented in the history of my mouth and I daresay anyone's. (SC 211) Finally, he concludes that her failure is due to her Oedipal complex. "Should I have suspected something a little bit amiss when a few minutes later, as we were bidding the Lapiduses and Fields farewell on the gravel driveway, I saw Mr. Lapidus kiss Leslie tenderly on the brow and murmur, 'Be good my little princess'?" (SC 205). Another sign of her complex is that she does not dare to touch his penis which is the organ of her joyful fantasies, but it is also the organ which could take her virginity and the Puritan morality of the 40s away. She sticks to the idea of 'your virginity should be preserved until you get married' so notoriously that when she is forced to touch it she "sails off the sofa as if someone has lit a fire beneath her and at that moment the evening and all my wretched fantasies and dreams turn to a pile of straw" (SC 213). The Leslie Lapidus story can have other interpretations as well. For example a feminist reading of the text could make it possible to say that Leslie is the victim of male chauvinism. She is forced to touch Stingo's organ, and it is more like an implication of a rape. The male organ is the symbol of all female frustrations. It is the organ a girl lacks, and in our male dominated world she would like to own it, but it is impossible. It is the penis envy motive and it is the symbol of eternal frustrations that are a part of Leslie's unconscious. Stingo gets disappointed with Leslie, and his frustration reaches a state when he is no longer interested in her life, and he does not want 46