The Babysitter as the Sexualised Object of Male Fantasies in Robert Coover's "The Babysitter"

Table of Contents

1 Introduction: “The Babysitter” with Particularities

2 Sexualisation of an Archetype- The Babysitter as Object of Male Fantasies
2.1 Harry Tucker - Obsessive Sex
2.2 Jack and Mark - Aggressive Sex
2.2.1 Jack - The Boyfriend
2.2.2 Mark - A Friend
2.3 Jimmy Tucker - Repressed Sex

3 Different “Realities” or Fantasies - A Challenge for the Reader
3.1 The Babysitter as Cultural Construct - Virgin or Vixen
3.2 Imagination and “Reality” influenced by the Story’s Style

4 Conclusion: From fantasies to social issues

5 Works Cited

1 Introduction: “The Babysitter” with Particularities

Coover descants upon the counterpointing realities and fiction of our lives and the violence, inanities, and sexuality that permeate the media which dictate our conscious and even unconscious behaviour. (Gordon 120)

In this statement, Lois Gordon refers to Robert Coover’s most anthologized story “The Babysitter” (Evenson 3), which was published in 1969 in Coover’s collection of short stories “Pricksongs and Descands”. It is fragmented into 107 paragraphs that are not connected to one another but all revolve around one evening of babysitting. “The Babysitter” moves from one perspective in one fragment to another in another fragment. Each fragment or paragraph gives a different version of the events of the evening and the story ends up with a proliferation of possible “realities” (Evenson 84-85). Even though the whole story is a piece of fiction, the term “reality” is used to create a clearer distinction between the characters’ “real” experiences and events that they imagined. Imaginary events being events throughout the story that are understood as fantasies and only happen in the characters’ minds or on TV (http: //home.foni .net/~vhummel/Image - Fiction/chapter 1.html, 26.1.2015).

Coover does not organize his story into a linear plot but creates a juxtaposition of narrative fragments separated by blank lines that contradict one another (Evenson 91). This kind of fiction, metafiction, creates suspense and captivates its readers by forcing them to contemplate the structure of the story (Evenson 94). Metafiction is self-conscious fiction that is mostly attributed to postmodernism (Elias 15). It is said to have surfaced during the postmodern era, because at that time traditional systems of meaning and also writing were critically analysed and radically questioned (Evenson 16).

This paper will focus on the fragments of male fantasies and the challenge they present to the reader under the assumption that the babysitter is only an idea and not a person. The babysitter builds the centre of the story and stands in the spotlight of all events, possible realities and fantasies. Throughout the whole story, the babysitter is not once mentioned by name, which makes her more into a sexualised object than a real person. This notion is intensified by the broken-up form of the story and the uncertainty about which events “really” happen to the characters and which are only imagined.

In the second chapter, the babysitter will be analysed as sexual fantasy and the object of male desire from the perspectives of the male characters Mr. Tucker, Jack, Mark and Jimmy Tucker. The following chapter will give a general view on stereotypical perceptions of babysitters and how they are represented in the short story as well the influence the story’s form and style have on the reader. Lastly, the fourth chapter will offer a conclusion and have a look at prominent social issues.

2 Sexualisation of an Archetype- The Babysitter as Object of Male Fantasies

The babysitter is a modern archetype that instantly brings many association to the reader’s mind (Gordon 87). These associations are explored in “The Babysitter” in many different variations that partly do not seem possible at all: It varies from an uneventful evening where no one is harmed, to evenings of different versions of teenage sex and ultimately escalates to rape. By addressing them directly, the moral and ethical implications of these fantasies are put in the spotlight and it becomes the reader’s task to dispute them as dimensions of the human character (Gordon 87). The text itself does not put one over the other but mixes them thoroughly in its broken up form, which forces the reader to really stay focused and to work on an own opinion. “The Babysitter” denies the reader a linear structure, a specific plot and a characterization but has still to be considered highly structured to be able to present this many possible events or fantasies.

Here [in “The Babysitter”] he [Robert Coover] objectifies an endless number of associations with ‘the babysitter’ in terms of both her fantasies and those of the people associated with her (...). (Gordon 120)

Lois Gordon describes the babysitter as an idea that is often fantasised about and refers to Coover’s many possibilities of doing so. This chapter will not treat the babysitter herself as a “real” person with own fantasies but only as the object of her male associates’ fantasies and will focus on these.

2.1 Harry Tucker - Obsessive Sex

Sitting at the end of the kitchen table there with his children she had seemed to be self-consciously arching her back, jutting her pert breasts, twitching her thighs: and for whom if not for him? (Coover 324)

Harry Tucker is the father of Jimmy, Bitsy and the baby and the husband of Dolly. Throughout the story, it becomes clear that Harry is no longer physically attracted to his wife who is described as fat with broad thighs and in need of a girdle so tight that it hurts. Harry’s mind obsesses about the babysitter and he thinks about her body on more than one occasion and always in great detail: “Bare thighs, no girdles, nothing up there but a flimsy pair of panties and soft adolescent flesh” (Coover 325). He focuses mostly on her thighs and legs and repeatedly mentions her “light brown pubic hair” (Coover 331).

He obsesses over her appearance and youthfulness so much that he develops fantasies about seducing and eventually raping the babysitter in his home. The fantasies start out almost lovingly and seem to imply Harry’s wish for intimacy rather than only sex. He imagines the babysitter as almost innocent, probably due to her youth and their age difference. The age difference provides a special allure for him as he explicitly “huddles [her] in his arms like a child” and “wraps her nakedness” (Coover 330). His actions do not have any paternal purpose as he kisses her, joins her in the tub and ultimately tricks her into touching him by hiding the soap under water. Harry repeatedly fantasises about the babysitter in the bathroom and in the tub. He surprises her when she is already naked and he can see her body tight away (Coover 330). This setting makes the babysitter extremely vulnerable from the beginning and Harry, in the role of the older and experienced man, can easily take advantage of her. The obsession over her body and the increasingly sexual fantasies slowly shift and become more aggressive: “(...) her thighs spread for him, on the couch, in the tub, hell, on the kitchen table for that matter (...)” (Coover 332). He is no longer only fantasising about touching or being touched but having sex with her. The fantasies turn into fantasies of violent rape and, in one possible event, end in the death of the babysitter:

She grabs for a towel, but he yanks it away. (...) “Please! Mr. Tucker . . . !” He embraces her savagely, his calloused old hands clutching roughly at her backside. “Mr. Tucker!” she cries, squirming. (...) He’s pushing something between her legs, hurting her. (Coover 341)

Harry Tucker’s fantasies of the babysitter bend over the tub correlate with the choice of words used to describe playing golf. The way he and his host talk about golf during the party, has an ongoing sexual innuendo and seems to fuel Harry’s desire to the point of having rape fantasies (Hoyer 1). They talk about bending over, playing in a threesome and still looking for a fourth participant and golfing terms like “stroke a hole” (Coover 327). Harry projects the game of golf on to the babysitter bend over the tub and how he moves to reach out to her and her flexed buttocks that he unconsciously mimics the motion, which is immediately explained by “(...) practicing his swing for Sunday [golf] (...)” (Coover 330). The babysitter is now not only the centre of his fantasies but also put in direct comparison with a game of golf and objectified as such (Hoyer 2).

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