Why Return?

Scene from "Eyes Wide Shut": A man drawn by his need to return, despite the looming consequences, to a similarly scary sadomasochistic experience. This one's more classy though, and it stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Also, directed by Kubrick.
Why Return?
There were warning signs, certainly, that should have been taken into account: furtive glances at the dinner table, the unnecessary hurry and urgency in the voices of the host and hostess, the improper persistence in their invitations, and most telling, an actual portrait of Colin on the dresser. Robert and Caroline obviously had a hidden agenda that they blatantly refused to divulge—the authors himself contests that Mary and Colin, though perhaps not conscious of the danger, had enough good sense and caution to feel fear and uneasiness. Why, then did they return?
There are many explanations, and explanations for those explanations, and the answer overlaps between all those layers of reason and lapses into the realm of human emotion. It could have been to save Caroline. It may be true that step by step they could have found themselves back at the house and unconsciously arrived, but if we are to believe anything in Freudian psychology in terms of how its understood in the pop culture cannon, such a trip cannot be entirely unexpected. Some places scar the memory, put changes into affect whose origins we cannot understand unless we see the context of the bigger picture. People need change, and then people need closure. Why the sudden burst of affection in the marriage? What link does it have to Robert and his belongings? What changed?
I watched Atonement last summer: the literary basis for that film and this book share a common author and interrelated notions for the human “guilt-sex-violence-melodrama-world’s away” drive. McEwen’s writing suggests that they’re all related and personally I tend to agree. Returning might have been as masochistic adventure, something painful and unintended but necessary for the full understanding of the self. To know oneself through the pain of existence, maybe, or to at least divulge yourself in the senselessness of it. Sounds stupid, but its been an issue since biblical times—think Adam and Eve, separating themselves from god by eating the fruit of knowledge, spiting god, living in hardship, assuming guilt and wanting punishment that’s been the plague of human conscious ever since. Then think of Elmo Kids who cut themselves, “bleeding to feel something.” Or think of the kids at shows who just like to get punched in the face. They keep coming back, keep wanting more. Guilt is an addiction. So is sex. So is violence, if you’ve got the right personality. Maybe because in their most base nature they stem from the animal part of the human mind. I have no idea.
But sometimes you have to go back, even if its stupid and dumb and you know it.