Dark Spring by Unica Zurn has some very interesting themes that deal with surrealism, most specifically desire. The young girl in the book wants to feel desired not only by her family, but also by other men. This is weird because she is only 12 years old and already wants to feel desired by older men. The reason for this is because she is neglected as a child and has no love by her parents or her brother. She sees her father with other women, along with he mother with other men, and therefore knows that desire between a man and a woman exists and she wants to feel that for herself.
Lonely and hurt, she then indulges in a world of sexual and masochistic fantasies, masturbating and discovering the pleasures of her own body as a means of coping with the pain of feeling unloved and insignificant. At one point in the narrative she dreams of being kidnapped by a group of “dark men” and tied to a black slab of marble, where she is subsequently gang-raped, her throat cut at the moment of sexual climax. She indulges in such fantasies throughout the work but continually acknowledges that imagined sensual pleasure does little, if anything, to fill her emotional vacancy: “She searches for something that would really complete her and she cannot find it. everything is false.”
The young girl is trying to fulfill her desire with sexual pleasure, however this doesn’t give her the full desire everyone needs in life, which is to be loved. She is still empty inside and believes it’s her purpose to find something that will fill her up and complete her. She finds that what completes her is her fantasy and love of the older man she sees at the pool. By going to talk to him she is fulfilling her desire to meet him and have him give her attention. Attention is her ultimate desire. She feels complete that she was able to interact with someone she desires, unlike her father who she desired but he ignored her.
Another more unfortunate desire of hers is at the end of the novel when she wants to end her life. It’s interesting because she is happy and feels complete after leaving the mans home, but then after finding out she can never go there again, or even out in the world again as he punishment, she immediately forgets her happiness and goes right into contemplating her death. She doesn’t have it in her anymore to fight the battle of being lonely and undesired.
This book was enjoyable to read, and was very different from any book I have read before. There are many more elements to this book that can be looked at as well.
Dat shi fffed up
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