Pincher Martin

A shadow on the cave wall morphs into a hallucination of Mary, whom Martin characterizes as a chaste virgin with a “demoniac and musky attractiveness that was all the more terrible because she was almost unconscious of it” (131). Martin remembers her rejecting his sexual advances on a date and asking to be taken home. When he asks why she agreed to go on a date if she doesn’t want to have sex with him, Mary apologizes and says she doesn’t think of him that way. Still searching for an opening, Martin says with fake warmth, “You’ll be a sister to me, I know” (134), to which she curtly replies, “If you like” (134).

This infuriates Martin, who tells her to get in his car, which she does. He begins speeding and tells Mary that if she doesn’t agree to have sex with him, he’ll drive into a tree where the road forks, adding, “I’ll hit it with your side. You’ll be burst and bitched” (135). Martin then stops the car and rapes Mary.

In another flashback, Martin begs his producer Pete to help him avoid conscription into the armed forces, but Pete refuses. Later, while in bed with Pete’s wife Helen, Martin asks for her help in persuading her husband, but she refuses, citing the younger women like Mary whom he pursues.