Pusum

Pussum is a woman in D. H. Lawrence’s fiction, cited by Simone de Beauvoir as an example of the damage done when a man treats a woman as an object of his will. In Gerald’s gaze she appears as a violated, passive figure; the episode helps show that domination cannot create real communion or mastery.

Identity and Introduction

Pussum enters the discussion through Gerald’s response to her. De Beauvoir quotes his view of her as a violated slave whose fulfillment seems to lie in being violated further, and describes how that image makes his nerves quiver. The passage offers no account of Pussum’s life beyond this encounter, and her presence is mediated through Gerald’s perception rather than developed as an independent biography.

Gerald’s Will to Dominate

Gerald imagines that Pussum is the passive substance of his will: he alone wills, while she is reduced to the object upon which his will acts. De Beauvoir presents this as a form of pitiful domination. If the woman has been made merely passive, the man has not truly mastered another person; he has mistaken the subjection he imposes for an enrichment of himself.

Thematic Significance

Pussum’s brief appearance belongs to De Beauvoir’s broader criticism of male power that debases the woman toward whom it is directed. Gerald believes he is taking something and becoming fuller, but the apparent possession is a delusion, not a reciprocal encounter. The scene makes the difference between control and communion stark: a woman reduced to an instrument cannot meet the man as another subject, and his assertion of power leaves the claim to mastery hollow.