Pierina Lopez
Professor Vartan P. Messier
ENG 446
May 19, y
To Be a Victim Or Not To Be a Victim Victimize is defined as being singled out for cruel or unjust treatment. There are two main females characters in The Elementary Particles that are subjected to be victimized but was it brought upon themselves? Do they give the men the power which causes them to end up feeling victimized?. The women in this novel are look upon when needed wether it was sexual or emotional purposes for the most part it was more sexual then emotional. They understand there role and accept it, is that considered to be a victim? One of the female main characters is Christiane which Bruno meets in the Lieu du Changement. Christiane is a biology professor and is now a older women, getting older is a big thing in this era for women because once your start to get older the men don’t want you, she states “...live a lot longer and suffer a lot more (than men). They try to trade on their looks, even when they know their bodies are sad and ugly. They get hurt but they do it anyway, because they cannot give up the need to be loved. That’s one delusion they’ll keep to the bitter end. Once she’s past a certain age, a woman might get to rub up against some cocks, but she has no chance of being loved.” (117). Christiane basically knows what she is getting into before even getting into it though deep down inside it causes her pain. She basically exists to satisfy the sexual needs of a man and gets pleasure from pleasuring a man. She also mentions that she carries a picture of her ex-husbands erect penis in her wallet, it is like her reassurance that she has the skill to erect a penis while she brags about how amazing her oral sex is. That picture also resembles the fact that even though she was so good at pleasing her ex-husband he still left her for a younger women. With Bruno it was the same concept in the since that once she became paralyzed and wasn’t able to fulfill his needs anymore and was aware that Bruno was no longer around she saw no need in living anymore and commits suicide. Is Christiane one to be blamed for committing suicide? As you could see she only lived to please the men she was with and she made that clear when she committed suicide because she was paralyzed and knew she would never be able to please a man being old and on top of that handicap. She cared more about men then herself but why should the men be blamed if she allowed such acts. The narrator makes men look like such animals which could be argued but women aren’t angels either. Christiane and Bruno got along because he liked the fact that she understood how he thought in some sense and nonetheless pleased him whenever he needed to be pleased. She put herself in that position and she didn’t mind cause she always had the power to leave and she didn’t. Annabelle is another female main character in this novel, very beautiful girl. As children Michel and Annabelle were best friends Annabelle always has the image of one day marrying Michel not knowing that Michel will never be ready of such thing because he is not capable of feeling for another. The narrator forewarns Annabelles life by saying “Great beauty seems invariably to portend some tragic fate” (50). Even though being beautiful isn’t Annabelles fault she suffers from it greatly because she finally realizes she couldnt wait for Michel forever and lost her virginity to some