And now
we reach problematic chapters 6, 7 and 8 of FSOG. Sorry Bella / Ana / Annie, I’m
taking over for this one. For purposes of this chapter, ‘original’ character
names will be used.
We need
to talk about Christian. I think he grooms Ana. Don’t jump in and say, ‘But she’s
an adult!’ firstly, abusers DO groom their victims, and secondly, Ana is
infantilised throughout the book. She claps her hand like a child, giggles like
a child, says she feels like a child. Let’s look at the evidence for grooming.
1)
Buys her gifts
First
it’s the books, later on it’s a phone, laptop and a car. The phone and laptop
are so he can control the contact he has with her. In Darker, he gets angry with her for using her work computer to
contact her, telling her to use the Blackberry (it would seem simpler for her
to use a private email account instead of a work one, but that’s a writer fail
there.) He will also go on to buy her jewellery and even a whole publishing
company.
2)
Gives her alcohol
To make
her compliant enough to sign the NDA, show her the Red Room of Pain and the
contract. These chapters made me so angry I wanted to smash things.
Ana is
a virgin. She blushes at the thought of sex; she’s embarrassed to even tell Christian she’s a virgin. When she does tell him, he charmingly calls it a ‘situation’.
This is not the man to lose your virginity to. She’s also drunk, so her ability
to make decisions (and therefore to consent) is impaired, but Christian has sex
with her anyway.
I find
it hard to believe that Ana, a 21 year old university student, has never had
sex or kissed anyone (EL James forgets about the ‘never been kissed’ bit in Freed and Ana talks about kissing boys
when she was in high school.)
So I
find it hard to believe that Ana would go from ‘never been kissed’ to ‘orgasmic
sex kitten’ in a few pages. SHE’S NEVER HAD SEX BEFORE. Wouldn’t she want to
try other things first? Like, French kissing, hand-jobs and oral sex? Go on a few 'getting to know you' dates and do some of the beginner
sex stuff first? I know that this isn’t the way most adult sexual relationships
would go, but Ana isn’t a normal adult. We’re repeatedly told of her
inexperience, her naivety, her innocence. She doesn’t even know if his penis
will fit inside her! This is not a girl that should be having sex on a second
date, and this is not a girl that should be going into a ‘BDSM’ relationship (I
put BDSM in quotes, because that isn’t what Christian is in to, he’s just into
controlling and hitting women, he doesn’t care if they like it or not.)
That's better!
3)
Ingratiates himself into her family / isolates
her
This
doesn’t happen until later in the book, when Ana goes to visit her mum to get
some space. Christian then TURNS UP and he charms Ana’s mother.
Oh mom, et tu, Brute?
‘You
too, Brutus?’ These were said to be the
last words of Julius Caesar before he was assassinated. I am not sure what Ana’s
mum has actually done – she’s not betrayed Ana, but it tells you something
about Ana’s feelings for Christian and they’re not healthy.
Mother
of the year award goes to Carla:
‘Wow’ she mutters. ‘Ana, there’s something
going on between you two. I’ve been trying to figure it out since you arrived
here,’
Ana
starts crying, probably because she wants her mum to say what most mums would
say, which is, ‘What a fucking weirdo, flying all this way when you said you
needed some space, I don’t like him, he’s a creep,’
But
Carla says:
‘I don’t care how rich you are, you don’t
drop everything and get in your private plane to cross a whole continent just
for afternoon tea. Go to him! This is a beautiful location. It’s also neutral
territory.’
Just
think about this for a minute. Imagine you go on holiday with your mum, because
you need some time out from your confusing relationship. You’re in Greece, you’re
in a taverna, having a few cocktails before dinner. Then imagine that the man
you’ve been seeing for a couple of weeks (and it is only a couple of weeks by
this point) walks in and announces he got a package flight to come and see you.
Is it still ‘romantic’? It’s not romantic. It’s weird.
Christian makes it clear that he does not like Kate, Jose or Paul, further isolating
her from support networks.
As Ana
has signed the NDA, she is prevented from telling anyone about what’s going on
in the relationship. I’d argue that she
was coerced into signing the NDA, so it doesn’t stand.
4)
Emotional manipulation
Those
of you that have read and remembered the book, I want to try and describe Ana.
What’s she like? Try and think beyond, ‘She has blue eyes and brown hair, and
she’s skinny. She’s also innocent and bookish until she meets Christian,’
What
else?
Because
Ana Steele and Bella Swan are the same person and author / reader inserts, neither of them
have particularly striking personalities. I’ve been reading Twilight, and Bella always just seems
irritated, annoyed, sulky, exasperated and bored on a continuous loop. The only
time she’s happy is when Edward is around. Sure, Meyer throws in that Bella is ‘clumsy’
- her clumsiness almost gets her killed, but Edward saves her. We know that Ana is also graceless and uncoordinated
(because Bella is) as she falls into Christian’s office, and later on, she’s
almost hit by a bike.
Both
characters are ‘blanks’, so the reader / author can slot themselves into the
fantasy. This makes it easier for Ana to be manipulated by Christian – Ana has
no agency of her own. Her decisions are made by Christian, for his benefit. It
also makes it easier for Ana to be EL James’ puppet for ‘plot’ arcs, instead of
rewriting bits that don’t fit with what she wants to happen.
Just
because an author keeps telling us their character is strong and intelligent,
it doesn’t make it true. We see absolutely no evidence of Ana’s intelligence or
strength. She’s a void.
I know
some of you are going to say, ‘but what about the all the times she stands up
to Christian?’ She doesn’t. She might say, ‘No Christian, I don’t want to do
that,’ but then she backtracks, agreeing with him, and he gets his own way.
How does
he manipulate her?
He
sulks. He uses his past as a way to get her to feel sorry for him. His moods
change very rapidly (from line to line) he gets angry with her for no reason
and she feels that she needs to placate him. She is afraid of the consequences
of not complying with him.
Over
and over again, she says
Oh no, what have I done?
Have I done something wrong?
Oh, he’s angry
And
this, this line from the dinner at his parent’s house (where he tries to finger
her under the table, by the way, I can see why women everywhere are falling in
love with this guy.)
It is even more palatable since Christian
manages to retain his good humour for the rest of the meal. I suspect it’s
because I’m eating so heartily.’
Can you
imagine how exhausting it would really be to date someone like Christian?
Christian
also repeatedly refers to Ana as ‘his’ which, in Twilight world makes sense. Bella is Edward’s because Edward is a
vampire and they have companions that ‘belong’ to them. In FSOG, it just sounds
like Ana can’t have anyone else in her life apart from Christian.
When
Ana first meets Christian, he insists on calling her ‘Anastasia’ or ‘Miss
Steele’ even though she keeps asking him to call her ‘Ana’. This is another way
in which he controls her, isolating her from her ‘self’ and molding her into
what he wants her to be.
Honourable Mention:
Poor housekeeper Mrs Jones- she has to clean the
playroom and the sex toys. CHRISTIAN
GETS HIS HOUSEKEEPER TO CLEAN HIS USED SEX TOYS. Who does that? You don’t leave
them out for the cleaner with a note, do you?
‘Linda –
please clean the following today:
·
Bath
·
Kitchen floor
·
Inside of windows
·
Sex toys that have been up my girlfriend’s arse –
these are on the bedroom floor along with the used condoms and spunky tissues.’
Thanks!’
I have
to go and lie down in a dark room for a bit so here’s some links to very funny
recap blogs. They have made reading this book bearable:
