Frigidity is desire imagined by a woman who doesnt desire the man offering himself to her. Its the desire of a woman for a man who hasnt yet come to her, whom she doesnt yet know. Shes faithful to this stranger even before she belongs to him. Frigidity is the non-desire for whatever is not him.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that a woman's perceived lack of desire is often rooted in her longing for an idealized, unknown man rather than the actual man in front of her.
Marguerite Duras explores the complex nature of desire in this quote, positing that frigidity or emotional detachment may not stem from a genuine lack of desire but rather from a yearning for an unattainable or idealized figure. This longing for a man who remains unknown leads to a paradox where a woman may appear non-responsive or uninterested in a man who is physically present, as her heart and mind are still attached to the fantasy of someone else, suggesting that desire can often be more about the dream of someone rather than reality.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the complexities of romantic relationships.
Alcohol doesn't console, it doesn't fill up anyone's psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God. It doesn't comfort man. On the contrary, it encourages him in his folly, it transports him to the supreme regions where he is master of his own destiny.
What she said was always strange. It had happened long ago. It seemed insignificant. And yet it was something you remembered forever. The words as well as the story. The voice as much as the words.
I'm still there, watching those possessed children, as far away from the mystery now as I was then. I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door.
Perhaps someone will have seen mine, the one I’m waiting for, just as I saw him, in a ditch when his hands were making their last appeal and his eyes no longer could see. Someone who will never know what that man was to me; someone whose name I’ll never know.
Stormy skies, says Ernesto. He grieved for them. Summer rain. Childhood.
A prolonged silence ensues. The reason for the silence is our growing interest one for the other. No one is aware of it, no one yet; no one? am I quite sure?
From here on after let's stay the way we are right now. And share all the love and laughter that a lifetime will allow.
We had a happy marriage because we were together all the time. We were friends as well as husband and wife. We just had a good time.
He had no idea of how long his life would one day seem to have gone on; how daily present the absence of love would come to feel. “Just watch me,” he said.
Faced with today's problems and disappointments , many people will try to escape from their responsibility. Escape in selfishness, escape in sexual pleasure, escape in drugs, escape in violence, escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape.
My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.
Love is a horse with a broken leg trying to stand while 45,000 people watch.
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