Literary Criticism: Lark and Termite

Lark and Termite: “Two to Tango” and One to Lose

The Korean War was the first hot war of the Cold War, underlain with paranoia surrounding the nuclear arms race and spiraling into chaos with the loss of Korean and American lives. Within the discourse of this era, conversations often surround orientalism, militarism, and imperialism. However, amid such convolution, is there something to be said about gender and sexuality, drowned out by the reverberations of war? Jayne Anne Phillips explores this dynamic in her novel, Lark and Termite, delving into a web of lives affected by the overseas death of an American soldier. While the pages speak to the layered dynamics of war, disability, and spirituality, the author’s repetition and depiction of permanent connection give rise to the social margins of gender through female sexuality. Although Lark and Termite is a story of the Korean War and its aftereffects, it is also a tale of feminine development, exploring the relationship between vulnerability and sex: the trials of becoming a woman. By inspecting the novel through the scholarly lens of suppressed female sexuality, Phillips’ writing offers renewed insight into feminine interactions and perceptions of gendered agency. Through the framing of the novel’s women and sexual conventions, Jayne Anne Phillips probes into the feminine condition, exposing the patriarchy’s normalized suppression of desire in exchange for female autonomy.

To better explain the dynamics underscoring Lark and Termite’s women, “Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality” introduces sex’s role as an arbiter of female agency. Within the scholarly text, Roy F. Baumeister and Jean M. Twenge elucidate gendered social differences to add another angle to the war-tinged family dysfunction of the novel. In their article, the authors write, “If sex is the main asset one has with which to bargain for other benefits, one wants the price of sex to be high” (Baumeister and Twenge 171). Sex for the women of Winfield, West Virginia is not just a shackle; it is also a layer of their autonomy. Nonnie and Lark are not men who can traipse around their town, having sex and laying claim to women. They are the bodies being sought after: “the[ir] main asset” (Baumeister and Twenge 171). Thus, Baumeister and Twenge’s explication of “The Female Control Theory” portrays how “if sex were freely available to men, then most individual women would be in a weaker position to demand much in return” (170-171). Winfield’s women must choose to have sex carefully or suffer the effects that go beyond their own bodies: consequences that weigh down womankind.

The matriarchal figures and their tandem histories flesh out gendered sexual suppression while simultaneously setting the foundation for why Nonnie is forced to pass on the strict, repressive culture to her niece, Lark. As readers gain knowledge of the relationships that connect Nonnie, Lola, and Charlie (Nonnie and Lola’s past lover), the author paints the image of a woman who has lost everything and a man who has, realistically, lost nothing. Charlie is “devastated that [Nonnie] knew what he’d done and couldn’t stop doing” (Phillips 62). He is not mourning the act of sex. He is mourning the loss of full possession—Nonnie “wouldn’t marry him, ever” (Phillips 165). He retains the pleasure of having had sex with both sisters, a part in his child’s upbringing, and a place in Nonnie’s life. On the other hand, Nonnie fails to escape her past as she continues to work at Charlie’s restaurant and raise Lark, the living embodiment of her lover and sister’s betrayal. Nonnie warns Lark of sex because she wants to protect her from the sensuality that motivated her and her sister’s younger life—the early fall to desire that ties her to a man seduced by her sister. Taking Nonnie’s history with sex into consideration, “the sporadic efforts to control female adolescent sexual activity probably reflect a desire to protect these young women from being hurt and…from willingly doing things that will end up hurting them” (Baumeister and Twenge 196). The physicality that made Nonnie “[want] to leave, get away from [Lola]” fuels the perpetuated guardedness of women’s sexuality in a world where “the costs of sexual mistakes have always been greater for women than men” (Phillips 163; Baumeister and Twenge 196).

Delving into the context of Lark’s sexual socialization, the main character’s age reveals a nuance of her suppression. As written by Baumeister and Twenge, “Adolescence is the developmental stage at which a young woman becomes a sexual being and may begin to make choices about sexual activity” (177). At seventeen years old, Lark is at a malleable age, exploring her sexuality and identity. Thus, “If any force in society wished to suppress female sexuality, the adolescent female would almost certainly be one of its prime targets of influence attempts” (Baumeister and Twenge 177). Having weathered a lifetime of a culture built to denigrate women, Nonnie is a product of her society, perpetuating gendered margins in how she suppresses Lark at her peak formative years. She wants to form her before Lark can be trapped in a man’s grip. She wants Lark to fit the mold of her own person rather than one connected to a man; Nonnie wants her to break free and be the woman she could never be. The consequences of Nonnie’s actions as an adolescent affect her perception of Lark in the present: a chance for vicarious retribution against the dynamics that keep her in Winfield and remain a threat to Lark’s autonomy.

Lark and Termite’s repetition of a phrasal motif alludes to these persistent warnings against sex in a young woman’s life, acting as the realization of Nonnie and Lola’s past onto Lark. Nonnie, telling Lark to “never let a man inside you unless you want him around forever,” reveals the deep-seatedness of gendered marginalization (Phillips 99). In “Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality,” Baumeister and Twenge remark on sexual development as a relationship of “direct socialization by females of other females to convince women and girls not to be highly sexual” (Baumeister and Twenge 172). Thus, through Nonnie's advice, Phillips speaks to the cyclical nature of women’s autonomy. Although Nonnie is trying to protect her niece, the motif that jades their relationship and Lark’s sexual development remains a sign that women have been used as pawns against women in a world where men are the unchallenged winners. Nonnie remains intertwined with Charlie even though he betrayed her in the past, fueling her dissuasion of Lark. They “started [having sex] when [she] was sixteen,” and she has never overcome their early connection (Phillips 114). Therefore, she does not want her niece “[to remember] each time, every man, even if [she tries] to forget” (Phillips 100). Nonnie is only doing what she knows best as she deters Lark from sex. Thus, she dispels Lark’s budding sexuality to prevent a permanent bond: a lesson from her own life, left fettered to a man she let inside of her early on.

Phillips does not construct value from this sole instance of sexual forewarning. Later on in Lark and Termite, Lark’s recollection of a sexual encounter with Solly, her young lover, concludes with “like I own his body, like he would own mine if he ever got inside me. If he got inside me I would never get away” (Phillips 204). Although this internal dialogue stands as a testament to Nonnie’s lasting influence, Lark’s diction reveals her internalization of sexualized social differences. This inequality is rendered clear in how she states, “like I own his body”; she avoids saying, “I own his body” (Phillips 204; emphasis added). Lark’s use of “like” highlights how she, as a woman, can only simulate the feelings of ownership a man has once he is inside of a woman. Although she has already “pushed [her] finger just inside,” Lark’s entry does not mark a parallel sense of possession, only an imitation (Phillips 204). Furthermore, her simulation only cements Solly’s license over her body. “He would own [her]”: a recognition that her control is conditional while his would be permanent (Phillips 204; emphasis added). Lark cannot let go of Nonnie’s advice when she is stuck in a society that “condemns acts by women more severely than identical acts by men” (Baumeister and Twenge 195). Men letting women into themselves are not left without an escape; they are allowed to have one-sided moments of vulnerability that would otherwise leave women in their clutches for a lifetime.

The narrative builds upon the momentum of a young woman’s halted desire with yet another return to Nonnie’s initial warning, emphasizing the never-ending responsibility a woman is forced to take in guarding her body and self. When questioning her birthhood and parental figures—after finding out that Charlie is her biological father—Lark’s thoughts once again devolve into Nonnie’s caution: “I’m asking, but I know, I remember. Inside you. Be careful when you’re young. Now you get it” (Phillips 257). She is learning about her past with the bitter reminder that Nonnie stayed with Charlie and raised her, the symbol of his betrayal, because Nonnie let him into her body when she was young. The repetitive relapses to Nonnie’s warning thus embody the role that sexual repression plays in a young woman’s life. Lark, moving toward adulthood and autonomy, is not just exploring this space through education, finding work, and caring for Termite; she is also warring against her desires for physicality and touch. She is investigating her lust with the burden of matriarchal memory upon her. Therefore, Nonnie’s warnings play the role of the metaphorical “angel on her shoulder,” embodying “suppression[, which] involves the message that sex is bad rather than simply the failure to teach that sex is good” (Baumeister and Twenge 167). Although Nonnie is imposing the social stricture that traps her, Baumeister and Twenge’s psychological angle confirms that Nonnie is coming from the margins, protecting Lark from a life that inherently connects a woman’s control to an unjust economy of sex. Lark does not want to be in a man’s clutches forever if the cost is one moment of reciprocity—letting him into her body. She has the reminder of Nonnie, cuffed to Charlie no matter his and Lola’s betrayal, to anchor her motivation and avoid the same pain. The man who “wakened making love to [Lola],” but they “were family again, or still, despite everything” (Phillips 163, 165). Thus, Lark’s remembrance highlights the social difference between the normative ideas of male desire versus women’s sexuality. Women must make careful allowances for their sensuality, with no inherent difference between gendered lust other than the feminine responsibility of endless yearning.

In the scope of the patriarchy, Lark and Termite explores social margins through women’s bodies, enforced by other women for the perpetuation of a gendered culture. Thus, Nonnie and Charlie fulfill the role of the cautionary tale, holding on to their past throughout the novel because she had let him inside when they were young. Although they have been battered by Lola’s insertion and Lark’s treasonous birth—all products of sex—their relationship illustrates how women must take the brunt of the burden when “it takes two to tango.” Nonnie is raising two children who are not her own, while Charlie remains a revolving presence in her life. Passing on this trauma to Lark at a young age only seems natural when the consequences of female sexuality are stark and isolating, ripping a woman’s autonomy from her with a man’s touch. Therefore, suppression is a matter of defense. Sexuality is a conduit of the gendered divide. Why would women support physical liberty if the man has all to gain and the woman has all of herself to lose?

Works Cited

Baumeister, Roy F., and Jean M. Twenge. “Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality.” Review of General Psychology, vol. 6, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 166–203, https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.6.2.166.

Phillips, Jayne. Lark and Termite. 2009, Vintage Books.