How this tension influences our understanding of any characters

A literary text and its impact on readers

A literary text is a tale about people or creatures that was written by a writer to create a deep connection in the lives of readers. In the short tale “Black Box,” the narrator is an excellent spy. She uses high-tech communication devices embedded in her body to gather information from extremely risky and ruthless terrorists. She continues to try to subdue and seduce these terrorists in order to obtain crucial data and information, so this is not an easy job. The Black Box, called after the book’s title, serves as the narrator. Susan Minot is the creator of the story “Lust.” It is made up of short paragraphs in which the narrator mainly focuses the psychological impacts she had after having sex with different young men (Mauldin 2)

The importance of tension in literary texts

Tension is important in literary texts as it gives meaning to any story. Both Black Box and Lust creates tension in the minds of the readers. The tension is created mainly by the male-female relationship that dominates in these two texts. In Black Box story, we can see that the narrator is a divorcee. She divorced with Alex and later remarried to Sommo. Despite the narrator remarrying, she is not able to forget his first husband, Alex, who they divorced, and she keeps on comparing between her ex-husband and her current husband. The comparison between the two marriages is a real-life situation nowadays as more women divorce and end up remarrying (Mauldin 4-6). However, this does not solve their marriage problems, but it instead put them in a world of crisis where they live by choosing which marriage is good, that is, the difference between the first and the current marriage and this may make them live as a divorcee for their lifetime.

The impact of sexual encounters on individuals

On the other hand, the story of “Lust” by Susan Minot starts by showing how the narrator encountered with many young men with whom she had sex or sexually related activities with them. The narrator vividly remembers and gives sufficient details about all the events happened when she came across each and every man. This is a clear depiction that she is not able to forget the images of these men in her mind in as much as she would probably like. The message that comes out from these details is that even sex usually have psychological impacts on human beings (Stoops 9).

The male-female relationship dynamics in these texts

The case of male- female relationship in these two texts has really focused on how women are subjected to sexually related activities. In both texts, women are using their bodies to gain intimacy and have control over their male counterparts. Females find seduction and sex as the only ways they can use to access what they want from males. However, females eventually acknowledge that these activities are having negative impacts on them. For instance, in Lust story, we find the narrator saying that she could experience a lot of tiredness and diluted. She further says that she suffered from loneliness after each male partner dumped her. Moreover, this tension shows that females’ love feelings are not cared for by men, but instead, men take them as sexual objects which can be used whenever that desire arises.

The pattern of cause and effect

Pattern

There is a pattern that I have found related to this tension. The pattern of Cause and Effect has been used in these two texts. The books imply that females have experienced negative psychological effects just because they are the ones who plan to seduce and have sex with the males with the aim of achieving certain objectives in life. However, this has eventually put them into trouble because men easily dump them after their sexual desires are satisfied. In the story of “Lust,” we can see the narrator complaining that she feels as if she cannot cope up with the way men are treating her. For instance, she complains after Eddie had sex with her and she never saw him again to the extent of comparing herself with a bathroom window which is translucent (Stoops 10-12).

The interesting nature of this tension

The reason why the tension is interesting

This tension tends to be interesting because the narrators in both texts are taking decisions or actions of their will and they end up regretting these actions. In the case of Lust, the narrator is not forced by any men to have sex, but she does that on her will to show love to them. However, she finally regrets taking these decisions as she is left by every man with whom she had a relationship since they rarely care about her real love feelings. This, in turn, causes her to feel worn out and to suffer from loneliness. In the case of Black Box, the narrator accepts communication devices to be implanted in her body and also decides to use seduction as the way of capturing data from the males (Mauldin 18). Implantation of these devices in one’s body might result in physiological complications such as pain and cold. She eventually suffers from a mental disorder as she cannot be able to prevent the memories that keep on reminding her about family members back in the country of origin. The conflict that exists between making decisions and their outcomes is the one that makes this tension interesting.

The influence of tension on character understanding

How this tension influences our understanding of any characters

The tension of male-female relationships has an impact on the understanding of the readers. The two texts have indicated that females are perceived as sexual objects by the males, and this has impacted the reader in that wherever he or she comes across a female character, then conclusions to be made will be related to intimacy and sex. Also, the texts look at how men are violent and ruthless towards women. This usually makes the reader view men as symbols of violence in the society. Furthermore, sex is seen as the strong “weapon” that females use to be able to have access to what they want from males (Stoops 13).

The influence of historical context on the tension

Does the historical moment in which the text was written influence the tension being described?

In the story of Black Box, the narrator tends to focus on to the future years to come. This futuristic aspect affects the tension of female-male relationship since it shows that females are ready to involve themselves in any sexual activity through the use of high-tech communication devices so that they can be able to access crucial data for their respective countries. This means that most relationships among males and females are going to be broken by these roles that females are undertaking and that advancement of technology tends to be a significant threat to relationships.

Reading the texts together

How my reading of these texts change when I read these two texts together

As a reader, one is moved slowly to a situation whereby the truth concerning the impacts of females being taken as sexual objects emerge. For example, in the story of “Lust,” we find that the narrator is mentally disturbed by the number of men she comes across with. This makes her voluntarily agree that males have wrongly used her as a tool, which makes her feel lonely and experience a state of tiredness (Mauldin 22). Also, the story ends at a point where the reader is not able to be entirely convinced that the narrator will change for the better, that is, the reader is left in a state of confusion as much as the future life of the narrator is concerned. The reader ends up trying to figure out if the narrator will change her behaviors to reduce or even finish this challenge of self-damaging. Furthermore, the way the narrator in Lust tells how she jumps from one man to the other makes the reader remember the people he or she has had sexual relationships with without real love instead of having memories of people he or she loves. In Black Box story, the narrator allows the reader to develop a sense that sex and seduction are the efficient ways of collecting data among terrorists. It also makes the reader think that terrorists will only be destroyed by women who seduce them and finally expose their inner details to the respective governments.

Works Cited

Mauldin, Shannon. “” It’s Different for a Girl“: The Virgin/Whore Dichotomy in Susan Minot’s Lust.” (2015).

Stoops, Meagan Rose. “The Terrible Women I’ve Been.” (2016).