what's my motivation?

Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Fri, 05 Mar 1999 10:09:36 +0000 

    '…Dammit, I've run out of train track again and
    I can't find the brake for this thought…'

    In the immortal words of Gertrude to one of her young
    disciples: 'Start over again, Hemingway.  And this time:
    *concentrate*.'

    (That was fine advice although, by & large, one should
    never take guidance from another writer.  It's like an antelope
    asking directions from a hyena.)

    You mention, Rick, the blonde's motivation - but seem also
    to be asking what might drive the hero to his 'drastic measures'.
    Postponed sexual fulfillment has certainly driven many classic
    heroes to extreme action.  And I'd have thought that prick-teasing
    is a factor common to all of Hitchcock's blondes.  (An exception,
    of course, is the second Mrs DeWinter.  She's a different kind
    of blonde - though Joan Fontaine embodied the other often
    enough in the work of other directors.)  And naturally I don't
    mean crude, rutting lust - rather desirability as a woman, as
    a *person* to be possessed.  Maybe that desirability in your heroine
    could be validation enough.  And perhaps all she needs are repeated
    proofs of its continued existence.

    Since this element in human relationships plays such a central part
    in all the best stories, I share your question mark over Salinger's
    refusal to confront it.

    The answer may well be that old Jerry is, in fact, Australian.
    In that splendid land, as we all now know - & contrary to
    my earlier impressions - the people come into existence by
    parthenogenesis.  Before they move on to platonic bondings
    in which libidinal drives are sublimated almost entirely in
    aethetic appreciation & philosophical discourse.

    Scottie B.