Obsessive Love

Duras portrays the experience of love in India Song as characterized by obsession. Anne-Marie Stretter is a lightning rod for the obsessive love of the men who surround her. Although she is married, she has taken many lovers, and men easily fall in love with her. Thus, Michael Richardson, the vice-consul, and the young attaché are all in love with her, while Anne-Marie loves only Michael Richardson. These characters seem to have no power or control over their obsessive feelings of love. As Anne-Marie tells the vice-consul, "I love Michael Richardson. I am not free of that love." The vice-consul responds that he loves her in the same way that she loves Michael Richardson. The vice-consul thus obsessively pursues Anne-Marie, despite her clearly stated rejection of him. After she sends him away from the embassy, he wanders the streets of Calcutta all night long, pathetically crying...