The Comfort of Strangers and Gender

How we dwelt in two worlds.

The daughters and the mothers

In the kingdom of the sons

-Adrienne Rich

In Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers, the main characters Colin and Mary are wondering lost around what once can assume is Venice when Mary notices a window display for a bed. There are two dummies “from the same mold” (21) but one dressed in pajamas and the other in a thigh-length nightie. “[The bed] was designed, on the pajama side at least, to resemble the control panel of a power station, or perhaps a light aircraft,” (21-22) and in the upholstery were objects such as a cassette recorder, radio, clock, and telephone. The nightie side, however, was “sparse by comparison” (22) and held items such as a mirror, magazine rack, and nursery intercom. On the street Mary also sees feminist posters; ““The women are more radical here,” [Mary says] over her shoulder, “and better organized,” “(23). Colin replies “They’ve got more to fight for,” (23). In translating she finds that the feminists want rapists castrated and Colin compares it to cutting off a thief’s hand as punishment. Mary responds that it’s a tactic to make people take rape more seriously as a crime and Colin refutes that it’s a way of making people take feminists less seriously. These two details introduce the theme of gender in The Comfort of Strangers. The setting of Venice, where women “have more to fight for” parallels the story’s themes of femininity and masculinity. The character of Robert shows misogynistic, hyper masculine tendencies from the start. He says of the feminists in the city, “These are women who cannot find a man. They want to destroy everything that is good between men and women,” (27). I

deas about masculinity and femininity become more complicated when Robert begins to talk about his childhood and especially his father. Robert describes his father: ““My father was a big man….all his life my father wore a moustache like this” – with forefinger and thumb Robert measured out an inch width beneath his nose – “and when it turned to gray he used a little brush to make it black, such as ladies use for their eyes. Mascara,”” (31). He also says that “Everybody was afraid of him,” (31). His father’s extreme masculinity is contrasted with the feminine act of using mascara. Robert goes on to explain his father’s controlling and misogynistic ways and how he was favored by his father over his sisters. Robert seems to respect his father and his stringent views of gender roles. He also seemed to have an unhealthy attachment to his mother (Oedipus complex) as he slept in her bed until he was twelve years old.

A description of Colin shows that he is more feminine that masculine. He has “slender, hairless legs”, “feet, abnormally small like a child’s”, “narrow waist”, “smooth white skin”, and his hair “fell into curls onto his slender, womanly neck,” (55-56). This depiction is in contrast to Robert who is described as muscular with large, hairy hands.

When Caroline is introduced into the story, she is portrayed almost immediately as submissive and passive. She describes love as “you’d do anything for the other person and… you’d let them do anything to you,” (62). Mary brings up to that she used to be in an all women’s theatre troupe and Caroline doesn’t understand how this could work asking, “I mean, what could happen?” (67). When Mary explains that the play could be about two women talking on a balcony Caroline refutes that, “they’re probably waiting for a man,” (67).

Robert’s overt misogyny is voiced to Colin when he talks of how men are not like they once were: “Now men doubt themselves, they hate themselves, even more than they hate each other. Women treat men like children, because they can’t take them seriously… But they love men. Whatever they might say they believe, women love aggression and strength and power in men. It’s deep in their minds. Look at all the women a successful man attracts…even though they hate themselves for it, women long to be ruled by men. It’s deep in their minds. They lie to themselves. They talk of freedom, and dream of captivity,” (72).

Mary and Colin’s conversations over the four days they remain in the hotel after meeting the couple also seem to center around the idea of gender. They talk about whether men and women experience a similar sensation during orgasms, the politics of sex, patriarchy, their parents’ relationships, and so on. Their conversations then take a more sadistic turn. They “joked about handcuffing themselves together and throwing away the key. The idea aroused them,” (81). “Mary muttered her intention of hiring a surgeon to amputate Colin’s arms and legs…and use him exclusively for sex,” (81) and “Colin invented for Mary a large, intricate machine…the machine would fuck her, not just for hours or weeks, but for years,” (81-82). This theme of sadism and masochism continues when Mary and Colin return to the Robert’s house. There Caroline describes to Mary her and Robert’s sexual perversions. She says, “Robert started to hurt me when we made love…and I had to admit, though it took a long time, that I liked it…It’s not the pain itself, it’s the fact of the pain, of being helpless before it, and being reduced to nothing by it,” (110). This idea of sadism and masochism mirrors the theme of masculinity and femininity to the extreme. Then

Colin’s murder is the culmination of it all. Robert kills him because of his own insecurities about masculinity. “Robert must prove that he is not weak like his sisters; indeed he must show that he is like the father, and he must be the father, whom he introjects as the sadistic superego. His conscious drive to destroy Colin, who is for him exemplary of the gender "confusion and unhappiness"(73) that pervades and undermines patriarchal culture, masks an unconscious drive toward his own humiliation and destruction,” (Sadism Demands a Story: Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers).