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Castillo, Jasmine Bianca A.

2015-05575
Professor Josefa Schriever
Eng12 THV1

Changes Through Love and Lust

The one thing that is truly constant in this world is change. All of us live amongst it for
we are surrounded by things that are continuously changing. It is inevitable for us human beings
as well. Whether we like it or not, sometimes it is a necessity. And most times we dont even
realize that it already happened. All of these changes can bring about a world of new things,
either showing signs of progress or deterioration.
The same goes for each and every well-written story, for what is a story without a change
in its characters or its events? It would just be dull and boring. It would be much more
fascinating and engaging when a story has characters that change and transform. And it would be
much more exciting when the plot doesnt follow the same predictable route, but rather
transitions into new and refreshing events. But these changes dont happen spontaneously. They
are brought about by certain triggers in the story, the most common ones being Love and Lust.
Love and Lust are the two triggers that would usually come in stories hand in hand.
Which is why, more often than not, the characters and even the readers would confuse the two
for one another. Where there is Love, there is certainly Lust. But Lust, on the other hand, doesnt
necessarily mean that Love would follow. These two triggers have a great potential to bring
change to the story and its characters. Love and Lust could either make the characters and the
story more beautiful or it could completely destroy them.

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Lust is obviously the shallower of the two. This is because Lust lacks the complexity that
Love possesses. Lust is merely an intense feeling of desire for something. And although it is
often tied to a strong carnal desire for sexual pleasure, it also extends to strong desires for things
like power or recognition. But with all of that being said, Lust is a perfect element to add into a
story in order to achieve transition and change. Because just like in real life, the element of Lust
in a story has a great potential to be the cause of the fall of most relationships and of most men.
And this element, in the sense of intense desire for sexual pleasure, cannot be more emphasized
than it already is in the novel Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq.
Pig Tales: A Novel of Lust and Transformation focuses on a nave female protagonist that
works in a beauty massage parlor. The most interesting part to it is that the female protagonist
slowly metamorphoses into a pig as the story progresses. The change or metamorphosis is
closely tied to the element of Lust. But that isnt the only thing that Lust has triggered. In fact, it
can be said that the entire novel revolves around sexual Lust and its power to change society, as
well as its inhabitants.
The setting of the novel itself is a society that is being run and controlled by sexual
desires, a heavy exaggeration on our real life society today. The evidences for this claim are the
repetitive sexual dealings that the female protagonist had with her many clients. And its clearly
not done out of love, since the protagonist has never met her clients before and is only doing her
job. Meanwhile, the males in the story are clearly driven by lust as evidenced by the Directors
claim that the tight-fitting uniform on the protagonist would surely please her male clients. From
the beginning of the novel, where the protagonist needed to cater to the Lust of the Director in
order to get a job, up until the most part of it, it is blatantly obvious that Lust had managed to
change and bend society at its will.

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Another thing that the element of Lust had managed to change was the womens position
in society, mens view on women, and its effect the female protagonists behavior. In the novel,
the female protagonist was certainly being treated as nothing more than a sexual object to satisfy
mens desires. The fact that the female protagonist herself doesnt have a name hints at her
insignificance. But the males, on the other hand, have specific names like Honor or Yvan. Her
constant mention of her figure and stunning beauty also indicates that the constant Lust all
around her has caused her to be more conscious of her looks. She was even delighted with the
beauty products shell get as benefits from her job. Of course this is to be expected, since she
lives in a society where women need to thrive through the Lusts of men, and men only lusts after
women who they think are beautiful.
Its not only the female protagonist who is changed by Lust. Lust is also what triggered
the drastic changes for the men in the story. In the novel, Lust seemed to have turned the men
into beasts who only think about satiating their sexual desires. The mentions of the female
protagonist about her sexual relations with her clients being more and more animal like proves
this. She mentioned that some clients would take her on all fours and grunt like animals. The
transformation of one man in the story, Yvan, into a wolf is quite the literal proof that Lust is
turning men into beasts. The wolf itself is a symbol of lust and carnality.
Through both of these transformations, the author successfully delivered one of her
messages loud and clear. The readers can firmly speculate that the author intends to relay the
message that Lust can transform men in to beasts and women into prey. In the novel, Lust has
also completely unraveled the civil society. The existence of it is the main trigger of a lot of
events. The biggest one yet is the slow ruin of men and women, as Lust renders them to be more

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and more uncivilized. Lust, no matter how shallow it might be, can bring destructive changes,
especially if men and women decide to be subjugated by it.
While Lust can be destructive, Love on the other hand is much more complex. Unlike
Lust, its meaning cannot exactly be confined into one sentence. This is because each and every
one of us experiences Love differently and therefore views it in different perspectives. According
to the Greeks there are four different types of Love Agape (unconditional love), Phileo
(platonic love), Storge (familial love) and Eros (romantic love). Experiencing various kinds of
Love may trigger positive changes to a person, but the lack of it, such as unrequited love, would
bring devastating changes.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy shows exactly this. The novel focuses
specifically between two types of Love Storge and Eros. It depicts the changes that can happen
whenever Love is present or absent. The story revolves around the lives of a family whose lives
were ruined by the Love Laws. These are laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.
And how much. The novel showed how Love can easily change someones life, most especially
the twins in the story Estha and Rahel.
It all started when the Love of Pappachi for his family fell short the moment he didnt get
credited for the moth he discovered. This is considered to be his lifes greatest setback and in
turn, it changed his relationship with his family from bad to worse. It is stated in the novel that
the moth was responsible for his black moods and sudden bouts of temper. He vented all of his
anger to his wife, Mammachi and his daughter, Ammu. Mammachis feelings for her son,
Chacko, changed due to the lack of Love from Pappachi. The line separating Storge and Eros
seems to blur, when Mammachi regarded Chacko as her savior from Pappachis bouts of
violence. Meanwhile, Pappachis lack of Love for his daughter changed Ammus possible future

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in getting a proper husband. This is due to Pappachi refusing to send her to college and having no
money for suitable dowry. It all went downhill for Ammu from there. Her husband, whos
supposed to show and give her Love, turned out to be a violent liar.
The lack of love from her father drastically changed Ammus behavior towards her own
children. Ammu was always quick to reprimand the twins and punish them. This explains the
twins doubts for their mothers love; a doubt that only grew stronger when Sophie Mol came.
This might also be the possible reason as to why Estha didnt mention the molestation incident,
since he thinks that his mother might love him a little less because of it. The lack of love from
Ammus husband was the thing that triggered her to say that the twins were the millstones
around her neck, causing the twins to run away with Sophie Mol. This would eventually lead to
Sophie Mols death, thus the trauma of the twins.
Another factor that contributed to the twins trauma was Baby Kochammas attitude
towards them. Baby Kochammas unrequited love for the priest had changed her to be a bitter
and selfish person. Due to her unsuccessful conquest for Love, she then sets out to torment the
twins in order to ensure that they will be just as miserable as her. She even forced the twins to
accuse Velutha, a man that both Estha and Rahel love. The twins Love for Velutha and the fact
that they were the reason for his death contributed to them seeking comfort with one another
through sex. Its definitely not done out of Eros or sexual love, but merely for seeking love and
comfort; something that the twins were mostly deprived of their entire life.
But with all the lack of Love in the story, there was one Love that, no matter how brief,
made two people experience happiness the love between Velutha and Ammu. The Love
exhibited by the two was the thing that changed Velutha and made him forget about his social
class. Even though according to the Love Laws relationship between the two was forbidden,

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Velutha, despite his social class, loved Ammu in secret. And the two experienced bliss and
happiness whenever they meet in the river.
Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq showed Lusts prowess to bring destructive changes.
Meanwhile, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy exhibited the power of Love through its
presence and how greatly things will change when Love is scarce. These two triggers for change
are possibly the most powerful ones in the universe. The incorporation of this elements into the
novels is what makes the stories so wonderful and engaging. Because Love and Lust is and will
always be universal.

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Works Cited
Darrieussecq, Marie. Pig Tales: A Novel of Love and Transformation. New York: New Press
International Fiction, 1997. Print.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Random House, 1997. Print.
Lewis, Clive Staples. The Four Loves. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 2002. Print.