BP3: A Deeper Look at “Karintha”

When I first read through the excerpt from Laura Doyle’s Bordering on the Body: The Racial Matrix of Modern Fiction and Culture, the line, “Karintha’s body absorbs light and value without, as it absorbs the gaze and intentions of the men who desire her,” from the first paragraph stood out to me. I had never thought of the sun metaphor as meaning more than describing how she looks physically. Doyle takes it a step further, comparing it to the gaze of men. I wholeheartedly agree with this idea, but it got me thinking. Could the line, “‘like dusk on the eastern horizon’,” be stretched any further? Would it be accurate to compare it to how the sun never sets on her? Meaning her beauty was ageless or was never ending, since the day never ended for her. That could be another such derivation of that line. 

The next line that caught my eye was when Doyle said “seesaw of competition,” referring to old and young men competing for her. I don’t agree with this opinion. In fact, I think the illustration of different ages being interested in her showed how her beauty transcended age. Doyle made it seem like she interpreted it as old men versus young men, when I think it is actually every man for himself. Doyle believes that the old versus the young is what caused her to “ripen” too soon. Instead, I believe it’s just the attention from all males, again, not just the “dynamic” between the young and old. I do agree with Doyle, regardless of her young versus old stigma, that Karintha was over sexualized and therefore “exiles her sexuality”. I also agree with how all of her attempts to decrease attention from the male community resulted in them being all the more interested. The only thing I truly disagreed with was the “seesaw” metaphor and the idea of young versus old that Doyle employed.