TLDR; Willem exhibits some outright abusive behaviors in A Little Life and I feel like I’m the only one who feels that way! I want to know what your thoughts about this character/relationship are and why?
Okay, so I am about 600 pages into A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and I have some thoughts about the relationship between Jude and Willem. I don’t have the same critiques of the book that everyone else has. For example, as a survivor of repeated CSA, I don’t find the book gratuitous, offensive or unrealistic in anyway. I understand why others might, and I definitely think it borders on unpleasant, but I do find Jude’s depiction of how his trauma is like >!a pack of hyenas!< a description of my feelings in a way that I have never ever seen expressed into words. But one thing that has bothered me, and something I seem to be alone in, is extreme discomfort with Willem and Jude’s relationship. Everyone I have seen talk about this, even those who hated the book, have praised Willem as a character for being a kind, loving, understanding partner to Jude. But both as a survivor and as someone who’s career involves me working with survivors, I feel like I could hand the “Happy Years” section out as a step-by-step guide of what not to as a partner to a CSA survivor. Major spoilers ahead.
1. \>!Going into the relationship, Willem knew that Jude self-harmed, that he had severe mental health and trauma problems, that he was suicidal and that he was uncomfortable with sex. So I don’t agree that “it was so hard for him, you can’t judge him”. Jude is an extremely unhealthy character who most of the characters enable the whole book, but the way Willem decides to finally stop enabling ends up making the problem worse (maybe not in the book, but Willem violates just about every “best practice” regarding having a loved one survive sexual violence).
2. Constantly poking and prodding at Jude to open up. Every character does this, and I do think talking would help Jude a great deal. However, knowing that even the memory of his abuse triggers self harm and suicidal ideation, I do not think that for most of the book that Jude is in a healthy place to recall and relay those stories to non-professionals. Willem, on the other hand, demands that Jude talk about what happened to him as a child, even asking for Jude to detail his abuse to him for his birthday present, and yelling at him again to talk about it to the point that Jude shuts down in the car on the way to thanksgiving. Willem doesn’t just think this will help Jude, he feels like it is something Jude owes him. And that leaves an awful taste in my mouth.
3. When he walks in on Jude cutting, he grabs the razor and starts cutting himself in front of Jude. Jude’s self harm is harmful, destructive, maybe even selfish- but never once does he do it in front of another person. Willem walked in, and did it in front of him with the sole intention of hurting him. Not only is there peer reviewed research that shows that a self harmer watching another person self harm will only make the issue worse, not better. But the same research also tells loved ones that threatening to, or executing, self harm on yourself to get the other person to stop doesn’t work, and is actually extremely manipulative. It will only hurt and traumatize the other person more, and make them feel more ashamed about a behavior that they are addicted to and cannot easily stop. On the note of addiction…
4. When Willem leaves to shoot a movie, he makes Jude promise him to stop self harming, with little to no resources to stop him from doing it. Not only is it not that easy to just stop, choosing to make him abstain instead of reducing the harm is not helpful. That is exactly what happens in the book. In order to stop cutting, Jude burns himself. And this is obviously horrific and not Willem’s fault in the slightest, it is the shame and secrecy imposed by Willem that causes him to act this way. This throws Wilem into a fit of rage where Willem again demands and yells at Jude to tell him about Brother Luke. Again, making the problem worse, not better or even neutral.
5. That night, after suspecting that Jude has self harmed again, he comes into the bathroom, rips Jude’s clothes off and gets on top of him to see if he has self harmed. He forcibly removes the clothing of his rape survivor boyfriend, and we are supposed to empathize with how bad he feels about it? I don’t know. I understand how upset he is, understandably, but he handles the situation with such little tact and such severity that he has to realize that he is being actually abusive. Not just adjacent, not just a bad partner, but actually abusive by getting physical with his partner.
6. In two sections in the Happy Years section, we get a look into Willem’s internal monologue. In one of these, he uses the word “coerced” when describing getting Jude to shower with him (something previously established as a boundary of Jude’s). He says that he coerced Jude into the shower, telling him “this will be good for you”, and then refused to let Jude get out when he was visibly uncomfortable. Jude goes catatonic for the rest of the night, and Willem feels bad, something that becomes a pattern. (do shitty thing, realize shitty thing was shitty, feel bad about shitty thing, apologize to Jude, do another shitty thing).
7. In the other internal monologue section, he suspects that Jude doesn’t actually like sex. He says that Jude says he does, but he suspects that Jude only says that to appease him. He suspects that Jude’s self harm gets worse when they have sex, and that he is lying about wanting to do it. He then says that this made him want to do it more, not to hurt Jude, but to understand what is happening. When Jude finally tells him he in fact doesn’t like it, his reaction, internally, was that he basically knew that already and this was just confirmation. But this whole time that he is aware of these things, he continues to have sex with Jude anyway, brushing his concerns aside and only asking once if Jude is okay with it.!<
I had to put the book down. None of the sexual abuse, domestic abuse, self harm, etc. made me as upset as reading some of this manipulative, outright upsetting behavior from the romantic lead. And it made me more upset that this is the love story that has been lauded as the great gay love story of our generation, and that Willem is supposed to be the model partner for abuse survivors. I know how the book ends, and I do think it will make me sad because I spend the bulk of the book really attached to him, but I could not believe that this is supposed to be Jude’s soulmate. So far, I am only sad that, including Willem, Jude never ever has a healthy, loving relationship with romance, himself, sex, etc. **Did you pick up on any of this? What are your thoughts on Willem and Jude’s relationship? If you love Willem because of, or in spite of this, why?**
by One_Ad_2081