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?
Only your compassion and your loving kindness are invincible, and without limit.
The root of the matter is a very simple and old fashioned thing... love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.
Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to love." (of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Persuasion)
People talk about love as if it were something you could give, like an armful of flowers.
I love thee with the passion put to use_x000D_ _x000D_ In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. _x000D_ _x000D_ I love thee with a love I seemed to lose_x000D_ _x000D_ With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath, _x000D_ _x000D_ Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose, _x000D_ _x000D_ I shall but love thee better after death.
I've had some wonderful love affairs and some that didn't work out. I don't want to dwell on that and I don't want to put people down, but I think all the fabulous places I've been, the wonderful things that have happened for me, the great people I've met - that ought to make a story.
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