Book Essay on A Fatal Attraction to Death

The Plot

Mary and Colin are an English couple on holiday abroad in an unnamed city where they had spent an idyllic vacation four years earlier. Mary is the divorced mother of two children whom she has left at home with her own mother. She is pretty and commonsensical. Colin is an actor, and a handsome man. Mary and Colin are trying to work things out, because by now their relationship seems rather boring, lacking in passion or real intimacy.

Late one night, they lose their way in the labyrinthine streets of the city as they search for a restaurant. In a cul-de-sac they meet Robert, an English-speaking native immaculately dressed in white. Over several bottles of wine, Robert recounts stories about his life. Colin and Mary become quite drunk. They try to walk back to their hotel through the dark alleys of the city, but again lose their way and are forced to sleep in the street, as they cannot find their hotel.

In the morning, hungover and thirsty, Colin and Mary make their way to an outdoor restaurant in the city square. There they see Robert, who insists on taking them home with him so that they can get some rest. They accept, and when they wake up that evening, they find themselves in a huge bedroom in a spectacular Moorish-styled apartment with a panoramic view of the city. But their clothes have vanished.

In Robert’s apartment they meet Caroline, Robert’s devoted, somewhat physically impaired wife, who suffers from a bad back. They find Caroline inexplicably mysterious.

Colin and Mary are shown great hospitality, which is marred by two bizarre, violence-tinged incidents: They are forced to stay for dinner, as their clothes will be returned only on condition that they promise to stay. Regarding it as a game, Colin and Mary accept without much resistance their hosts’ “kind offer” to stay for dinner. The second incident involves Robert and Colin: They are talking alone, when suddenly Robert “playfully” punches Colin hard in the stomach, causing him to double over and gasp for air. Colin does not protest his host’s brutal act, nor does he mention it to Mary or Caroline.

From their conversation before dinner, Colin and Mary realize the sadomasochistic nature of the relationship between Robert and Caroline, but prefer to remain silent about it, discussing it only several days later in the privacy of their hotel room.

Colin and Mary discover that the encounter with this strange couple has stirred something very deep inside them; their sexual relationship becomes charged with erotic passion. Their sexuality is rekindled, and so is their dying relationship. Their sexual games now include the expression of cruel and sadistic fantasies toward each other.

After several days, Colin and Mary groom themselves meticulously, as if preparing to meet someone of great importance, and without discussing it, go back to Robert’s apartment. There they find Robert and Caroline waiting for them, claiming that they knew that Colin would keep his promise and return to see them.

Robert takes Colin for a long walk. In the meantime, in their home, Caroline gives Mary tea laced with a drug that paralyzes her but leaves her able to see. She discloses to Mary that Robert uses violence to enhance their sexual pleasure, and she has been crippled as a result of their hideous sexual games. Caroline recounts that Robert confessed one night that the only thing he really wanted was to kill Caroline as they made love, an idea that kept recurring and that aroused them sexually.

Robert and Colin return. Seeing Mary totally drugged, Colin goes into a frenzy and insists on calling a doctor. Robert attacks Colin, slashing his wrist, and Colin bleeds to death while Mary watches helplessly. Mary later awakens, only to find that Robert and Caroline are gone. The police inform her that this kind of crime is quite common in this area.

A Disturbed Gender Identity

Gender identity is defined as an individual’s overt behavior in relation to others in respect of his or her gender and sexual partner orientation (Akhtar 2009). It is a complex psychological process that has its roots in experiences of early childhood and the identification with both parents (McDougall 1989).

All four protagonists in The Comfort of Strangers suffer from a greater or lesser degree of disturbed gender identity: Mary is depicted with some masculine traits (in a stereotypical sense), and Colin is depicted as effeminate. Caroline is a damaged woman, both physically and psychically, and Robert’s masculine identity is markedly confused. (I will expand on the source of Robert’s disturbed core gender identity, as only his history is given in the book.) Let us begin with the first couple, Mary and Colin.

Mary is an independent woman with common sense. Her desire to have men castrated surfaces when, during an intimate moment with Colin, she expresses her fantasy of cutting off his limbs and turning him into a penis attached to a body, to be used for sexual purposes. Mary’s masculine traits become more pronounced in her sexual reactions to Colin. Seeing him dressed in a feminine, flowery nightgown in Robert’s apartment, Mary is attracted to Colin’s effeminate looks and reacts like a sexually aroused man looking at a beautiful woman: “She opened her eyes as he stepped into the room: ‘Oh yes!’ said Mary. . . . ‘You look so lovely.’ She pulled his curls free of the frilled collar, and felt for his body beneath the fabric. . . . ‘I think I’ll have to take you to bed’” (pp. 41–42).

In contrast to Mary, Colin is described as possessing prominent feminine traits. His angelic face is more than handsome: Colin is beautiful. So is his body: “Around Colin’s narrow waist were little indentations, like teeth marks, in the smooth white skin, caused by the elastic in his pants. His buttocks were small and firm. . . . His hair was unnaturally fine, like a baby’s, and black, and fell in curls on to his slender, womanly neck” (p. 40). Colin is rather passive, hardly rebelling against the feminine clothing forced on him in Robert’s apartment, or, later, against Robert’s public declaration that Colin is his lover.

Not only is Colin’s appearance feminine, but his unconscious wish is to be a woman. He expresses this desire during intimate moments with Mary: “Colin said that he had long envied women’s orgasm, and that there were times when he felt an aching emptiness, close to desire, between his scrotum and his anus; he thought this might be an approximation of womanly desire” (p. 61).

In the scene preceding his murder, Caroline smears blood on Colin’s lips, thus transforming him into a woman to be used and abused by Robert: “Then Robert, pressing his forearm against the top of Colin’s chest, kissed him deeply on the mouth” (p. 95).

The second couple, Caroline and Robert, while exhibiting disturbed gender identities, also suffer from egos threatened by fragmentation of body and soul. Caroline is a damaged woman, physically and psychically impaired: her spine is broken as a result of the couple’s cruel sexual activities. To be a victim of a violent man is for her the essence of love: “If you are in love with someone, you would even be prepared to let them kill you, if necessary” (p. 46).

The description of Robert’s problematic gender identity begins with his greatly admired father, the diplomat, who resided in London for many years. Robert tells his companions that his father, who treated his family sadistically, when older used makeup to hide his white moustache: “‘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 grey he used a little brush to make it black, such as ladies use for their eyes. Mascara’” (p. 20).We can infer from this that Robert perceived his father, especially when older, as confused with regard to his manhood. As Robert’s story goes back to his grandfather, I believe that this confusion was transferred from father to son over three generations: “My father and his father understood themselves clearly. They were men, and they were proud of their sex. Women understood them too. . . . There was no confusion” (p. 54). Robert is aware of his confusion over his gender identity. He says, “Now men doubt themselves, they hate themselves even more than they hate each other. Women treat men like children, because they can’t treat them seriously” (p. 54). Men “don’t believe in themselves as men” (p. 55).

Robert uses force to compensate for his confused male identity, believing aggression to be one of the longed-for male attributes admired by women. Robert says, “women love aggression and strength and power in men. It’s deep in their minds. . . . And even though they hate themselves for it, women long to be ruled by men. . . . They talk of freedom and dream of captivity” (pp. 54–55). Robert apparently believes that his aggression will also appeal to Colin. Thus, when alone with Colin, Robert punches him in the stomach with his fist, “a relaxed, easy blow which, had it not instantly expelled all the air from Colin’s lungs, might have seemed playful” (p. 55). Colin falls to the floor, writhing and gasping for breath, and it is far from playful.

Perverse Relationships and their Function

Coen (1995) differentiates between two levels of perversion, each with a different function: The higher-level sadomasochistic pervert uses perverse behavior primarily to permit sexual functioning and orgasm as a defense against castration anxiety and oedipal guilt. The lower-level sadomasochistic pervert uses sexualization in the service of narcissism, closeness, need satisfaction, and the preservation of psychic equilibrium and structure. The ability of either type to resolve conflicts intrapsychically and to symbolize is impaired. Both are compelled to enact unconscious fantasies into concrete reality in order to validate them.

In my view, Robert is a lower-level sadomasochistic pervert with prominent aggressive and narcissistic traits. Although his perversion apparently increases his sexual excitement, I do not think that sex is his primary goal; rather, he uses sex to maintain his damaged narcissism and avoid fragmentation. He uses both Caroline and Colin primarily because of his need for control, making them feel bad, guilty, weak, inferior, and defective. It excites him to hold another person in the palm of his hand, attacking, destroying, and discarding him or her.

Although completely dependent on Caroline’s cooperation in his perverse activities, which serve to affirm his manhood and enable him to remain psychically alive, he hides the dependent parts of his psyche by giving the impression that he regards Caroline as a lifeless object he can discard at will. From his arrogant manner we can infer that Robert idealizes himself, especially his omnipotent, destructive parts.

As I have noted, of all the book’s protagonists Robert is the only one whose history is revealed. Robert is the offspring of a sadistic father and a submissive mother. According to Coen (1995), the child of sadomasochistic parents suffers from strain trauma. ¹ From his life story, it appears that Robert was frequently and chronically flooded with violence and sexual arousal, without adequate parental protection to modulate these affects. He has been brutally beaten by his father, and possibly sexually excited by these beatings (Freud 1919). We learn about his mother’s seductive behavior toward him from Robert’s memories about his childhood. He describes a special, secretive bond with her: “And always, when she came to my room and said, ‘What is it, Robert?’ I would say, ‘I want a glass of water.’ . . . Sometimes this happened every night for many months, but she never left the water by my bed. She knew I had to have an excuse to call out to her in the middle of the night” (p. 26).

Robert was the only boy among five siblings and until the age of ten slept in his mother’s bed when his father was away. I believe that this created a pathological oedipal constellation that led to his damaged narcissism, his fragile structure, and the organization of his lower-level perversion.

In the novel, Robert’s relationship with Caroline grows more and more sadistic and perverse. His sadism is expressed in perverse sexual activities, such as inflicting physical pain and humiliation on Caroline in order to achieve excitement and orgasm. It is possible that Caroline fulfills Robert’s unconscious fantasy of being the submissive and incestuous mother whom he consciously adores and unconsciously loathes. By submitting to him, Caroline becomes a willing accomplice in his incestuous wishes.

In addition to the pathological oedipal constellation, we can see an admixture of pregenital drive fixation. Robert remains fixated at the anal stage, as seen in his childhood memories: “Every morning [my father] got out of bed at six o’clock and went to the bathroom to shave. No one was allowed out of bed until he had finished. When I was a little boy I was always next out of bed, quickly, and I went to the bathroom to smell him. Excuse me, he made a terrible smell, but it was covered with the smell of shaving soap and his perfume. Even now, for me, eau-de-Cologne is the smell of my father” (p. 20).

According to Freud (1917), the fecal mass or “stick” foreshadows the genital penis; the production of stools becomes a prototype of childbirth (the infantile sexual theory of giving birth through the anus); excrement in the rectum anticipates genital coitus. Thus, running to the bathroom immediately after his father had left it, to smell his father’s feces, may be associated with Robert’s unconscious fantasy of getting closer to his father’s anus, his imagined place of birth, and may have been a precursor of his homosexual attraction.

Robert describes with gusto his traumatization as the victim of a dirty trick played on him by his jealous sisters. His sisters take revenge for the information he had given their cruel father about their mischievous behavior in his absence, when they played at being grown women and dressed up in their mother’s clothing. The father punished them cruelly for their mischief. Tricking Robert, the sisters offer him chocolate and lemonade, but first demand that he take some medicine to prevent him from being sick from the sweet food. They do not inform him that the medicine induces diarrhea.

Robert is tempted by the sweet food offered by his sisters, because sweet food— chocolate in particular—is a forbidden object of desire. It is considered an indulgence that for two generations had represented a threat of castration: “My grandfather never allowed my father sweet things. . . . especially chocolate, [which was] bad for the boys. It made them weak in character, like girls” (p. 23).

After he takes the medicine and eats the chocolate and lemonade, the sisters lock him in his father’s study. Unable to use the toilet, he defecates all over the room, pathetically attempting to clean himself with the only available paper—the papers lying on his father’s desk, which include “the affairs of State” (p. 25). Thus Robert profanes his father’s sanctuary and turns it into a farmyard.

For Robert, the outcome of this incident is extremely traumatic. Despite leading his son to believe that the entire family should defer to him because he is “the next head of the family” (p. 20), and thus a narcissistic extension of himself, the father turns with violent fury upon the young prince. Cast from the exalted position of serving as his father’s voice and proclaiming his father’s restrictions and prohibitions to his sisters, Robert now becomes a pile of shit to be discarded.

Robert’s dethronement is a dreadful, deadening experience for him, and we are informed that a psychiatrist came the following morning and confirmed that Robert had undergone a trauma. Robert is punished both on a physical and a psychic level: “He beat me every night for three days, and for many months he did not speak kindly to me” (p. 25). Losing the love of his father, his idealized object, Robert reconstructs a false self that is permitted everything, since he has suffered so grievous an injury (Freud 1916). His grandiose self is built around this anal core (Bach and Schwartz 1972), and his perverse tendencies are strengthened.

We learn from the novel that Robert is unable to have children of his own because of a problem with his sperm. From the point of view of the drive model, he may have unconsciously experienced this as castration, another punishment inflicted by his father. But, by identifying with his sadistic father, Robert may also have perceived himself as the murderer of his unborn children.

I believe that in the sadomasochistic perverse scenarios of destruction and murder enacted by Robert, first with Caroline and later with Colin, Robert identifies not only with his sadistic father, but also with his helpless victims. Caroline, who is sexually excited by Robert’s brutal acts, may symbolize the child in himself, who, as mentioned, was excited by his father’s brutal beatings. Colin is the innocent, beautiful child Robert had been, who was then seduced and “murdered” by his father.

To continue the exploration of perversion and its function, I will next examine Caroline, who expresses her “erotic masochism” ² through her need to experience physical pain, emotional suffering, self-debasement, and humiliation in order to achieve sexual excitement and orgasm (Freud 1905; Laplanche and Pontalis 1967; Shapiro 1981): “I wanted it more and more. I needed it. Robert began to really hurt me. He used a whip. He beat me with his fists as he made love to me. . . . and though I was sick with humiliation, I thrilled to the point of passing out. . . . I loved being punished” (pp. 86–87). The power of perversion includes the wish to surrender (Ghent 1990).

Caroline suffers from guilt that is affirmed by the punishing she receives from Robert. She expresses this in the following statement: “Robert started to hurt me when we made love. . . . 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. It’s pain in a particular context, being punished and therefore being guilty” (p. 86).

Although we have no details of Caroline’s history, we can assume that her submissiveness is caused by the desire to feel the illusion of Robert’s magical protection and caring. The relationship (which may represent an imaginary parent-child relationship) seems to be continually pushed to the brink, with the reassurance that it will never end. From this perspective, Caroline’s mode of relating may be regarded as a form of pathological dependence on a destructive parent, a demand that Robert take care of her. Caroline’s submissiveness to Robert, offering him the grandiose prospect of doing whatever he pleases with her, makes her feel seductive. The wish to surrender, to feel humiliated, worthless, crippled, is also an unconscious appeal to Robert’s protection from the rage and destructiveness both in herself and in him.

Unlike the sadomasochism of Robert and Caroline, Colin and Mary’s sadistic wishes toward each other, which are used to rekindle their sexuality, remain on an imaginary level. This is demonstrated in a description of their fantasies during intimate moments: “Mary muttered her intention of hiring a surgeon to amputate Colin’s arms and legs. She would keep him in a room in her house, and use him exclusively for sex, sometimes lending him out to friends” (p. 63). By transforming Colin into a penis attached to a limbless body, he becomes a sexual object (a kind of vibrator) available at her convenience, which she may occasionally lend out to others.

Colin too expresses his sadistic fantasies about Mary: He “invented for Mary a large, intricate machine, made of steel, painted bright red and powered by electricity. . . . Once Mary was strapped in, fitted to tubes that fed and evacuated her body, the machine would fuck her, not just for hours or weeks, but for years, on and on, for the rest of her life, till she was dead and even after that, till Colin or his solicitor switched it off ” (p. 63). In Colin’s fantasy, both he and Mary become dehumanized: Mary—a body to be fed, evacuated, and fucked, and Colin—an eternal fucking machine.

Dehumanization, degradation to the status of part-object, omnipotent manipulation, and exploitation are exhibited in both their fantasies. The other is used for one’s own imperative needs. A partial denial of the partner’s separate identity allows for this illusory transformation into a needed fantasy object.

Colin and Mary find themselves responding to the sadism offered by Robert and Caroline, which reverberates in them. The erotization of hostile aggression in both couples, which camouflages sexual and emotional deadness, leads to a kind of excitation that is at the core of the attraction between the couples, as I will further explore.

Narcissism and the Erotization of Aggression

In my view, as the protagonists’ destructive narcissism and aggressive impulses are linked to perversion, there occurs a pathological fusion of instincts (Rosenfeld 1971) that attracts them to death and destruction. Briefly, Colin is an inhibited, narcissistic individual. He is dissatisfied with Mary because she is unable to provide him the perfect attunement he needs. He feels that their relationship lacks excitement and intensity. Unsatisfied, lonely, and bored with Mary, he searches for an adventure that will inject some excitement into his robotlike, empty existence. This adventure is supplied by the encounter with the perverse and aggressive Robert.

Robert has no inhibitions about demonstrating his homosexual attraction to Colin. He loudly admires Colin’s looks after the latter takes a shower at Robert’s apartment. Robert touches Colin’s body often, holds his wrist, punches him in the stomach, walks hand in hand with him in the street with fingers interlocked. He proclaims to the men around his bar that Colin is his lover. Robert’s homosexual attraction seems to reverberate in Colin, serving as a source of sexual excitement and narcissistic gratification. Colin finds it alluring that Robert took pictures of him without his knowledge before they met.

Robert’s narcissism, the delusion of complete freedom to indulge in any sadistic activity he pleases, is doubtless appealing to the restrained and civilized Colin. Robert has no inhibitions about his aggressive impulses and, lacking a strong superego, suffers no remorse. Like Caroline, Colin may have been attracted by the exciting illusion of being involved in a special kind of loving with Robert, an illusion that masks Robert’s destructiveness (just as the objets d’art displayed in Robert’s luxurious apartment mask anal aggression, and his father’s eau de cologne conceals the smell of feces in the bathroom).

Chasseguet-Smirgel (1984) and Ogden (1999) write about the perverse subject’s attempt to distinguish truth from falsehood, leading to the replacement of the former with the latter. Robert’s falsehood is his use of hostility and violence under the guise of love and caring. To Colin he offers a specific matrix of relations, including a sexual, symbiotic, and grandiose pact, a hidden contract against reality (Stein 2005). Colin needs this specific matrix of relations to fill his empty reality and give it meaning. In his relationship with Robert, Colin assumes the role of passive victim, while at the same time being the desired object, thus feeling a sense of control and narcissistic enhancement. In my view, both Robert and Colin bear the illusion of sadistic omnipotent control over the other. Colin’s attraction to death results in his temporary appropriation of Robert’s destructive aspects, making him defiant and omnipotent. The resemblance between the two can be seen as a kind of unconscious “pseudo-twinhood” (Stein 2005).

Although pretending ignorance of Robert’s “promise” of aggression, both Colin and Mary are actually half-aware of it and indeed attracted to it. The threat to their survival that emanates from Robert enhances their sexual excitement (Kogan 2013). Robert’s “perversity” ³ arouses and stimulates them to the extent that they are tempted to collaborate willingly in Robert’s murderous scheme (Dorey 1986; Khan 1979). The control, the domination, the arousal of intense affects produced by Robert’s omnipotent manipulation, together with their attraction to destructiveness, compel Colin and Mary to return to Robert’s apartment.

In addition to the libidinal excitement, Colin’s attraction to death may have a narcissistic meaning: death can be experienced as a triumph over pain, fear, and, unconsciously, the entire world of object relations (Kernberg 1988). Colin’s entire being, like Robert’s, is committed to narcissistic self-sufficiency and thus is directed against object-relatedness. By flirting with death, Colin achieves a triumphant sense of autonomy, which diminishes his need of Mary. His aloofness is another reason his self-destructive impulses assert their power over the rest of him. Colin, the godlike figure, prefers death to belonging to a woman.

Like Colin, Robert is attracted to destruction because his own malignant narcissism and aggressive impulses are linked to his perversion, which likely has origins in his traumatic childhood. Stoller (1973, 1975, 1991) defines all perversions as “the erotic form of hatred,” which converts infantile traumas, especially attacks on the child’s gender identity, into adult triumph and is thereby characterized by hostility, revenge, risk-taking, and dehumanization of a sex object.

Robert’s father behaved as he pleased, regardless of the consequences to his children. As a result, Robert oscillated between periods of great indulgence and attention, with sexual and sadomasochistic arousal, and periods of being ignored, rejected, and abandoned by his father. To overcome his narcissistic hurt, Robert as an adult seeks to share in his father’s narcissistic greatness by perversely misusing others in a violently stimulating and exciting manner, making him feel grandiose rather than worthless. The violent scenarios enacted by Robert are the reversal of his betrayal and abuse by his father. In committing murder, Robert identifies with the aggressor who ravishes, despoils, and murders a beautiful and innocent child, a representative of his perfect childhood self.

Rosenfeld’s description of narcissistic personalities who idealize their destructive capacities (1971) and Egan and Kernberg’s delineation of the syndrome of malignant narcissism (1984)—which combines grandiosity, paranoid traits, and antisocial tendencies—are highly pertinent here. Fantasies and acts of violent revenge are common among such individuals. By destroying the angelic Colin, Robert places himself in the position of Satan, thus transforming his narcissistic trauma into a grandiose affirmation of himself and his omnipotence.

In addition, while Robert consciously uses Colin’s murder to enhance his sexual excitement in his relationship with Caroline, Robert may unconsciously use the murder for fulfilling his homosexual wish of uniting with the beautiful Colin in a kind of mystical union. The deep kiss that Robert places on Colin’s mouth before killing him may be viewed as a homosexual assault mixed with aggression, and the blood spurting from Colin’s cut wrist as a substitute for his sperm.

From a different perspective, Colin’s murder may perhaps be regarded as an enactment by Robert of a sadistic primal scene. ⁴ Viewed through this prism, the scene of Colin’s murder is an imaginary scene between three (a mother, a father, and a child who observes them), a scene in which Robert may be simultaneously identified with each of the three protagonists. In this scene, Mary helplessly witnesses the destruction of her love object, Colin, by the aggressive rival, Robert, and his appendage, Caroline. In killing Colin, Robert is identifying with both the aggressor—his violent, sadistic father, who is sexually assaulting and destroying the mother (represented by Colin, the effeminate male)—and with the victim, his mother, who is destroyed by the father. He may be identifying also with the helpless, traumatized child (represented by Mary), a helpless witness to the sexual and aggressive acts the father inflicts on the mother (Arlow 1980).

Exploring the way the perverse subject conceives the primal scene, Amir (2014) claims that for the pervert the primal scene represents the moment of his death rather than the moment of his birth. This hypothesis is strengthened by Ogden’s suggestion (1999) that perversion results from a core experience of psychic death. The perverse baby is stillborn as a result of his parents’ empty and dead relationship. Robert, who bears the traits of death of the murdered child, reconstitutes the scene between himself and his father by means of Colin’s execution. Through this prism, Robert’s primal scene fantasy, which is reenacted in Colin’s murder, can be seen as a scene of death, where Robert is both the murdering father and the murdered child. As such, Robert is himself murdered instead of being born. The destructive, aggressive, and perverse part of both Robert and Colin takes control over the libidinal aspects of their personalities, enabling them to greatly misuse them.

This tale of horror is the work of a great novelist. The Comfort of Strangers was adapted to film in 1990, directed by Paul Schrader, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. In the movie, the dark, labyrinthine streets are the streets of Venice, and the death looming on the horizon reminds one of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice.

With its interplay of perversion, aggression, and narcissism, McEwan’s book is an illustration of a dark and complex phenomenon, the attraction to death. The protagonists’ fascination with death, expressed through their perverse desire to destroy and be destroyed, holds a strong erotic excitement akin to orgasm. I believe that by erotizing their aggression, all four were attempting to deny an experience of vulnerability, of bodily and psychic fragmentation. I found the book a mesmerizing if terrifying journey through the dark alleys of the human psyche.