Sex and Vanity: A Novel

The setting of Capri, Italy, symbolizes desire. Lucie Churchill’s time in Capri awakens her impulsive spirit, as it grants her new experiences and affords her new relationships. Traveling to Capri is significant to Lucie because it’s “the first wedding she’d been invited to as a grown-up” and “the first real trip she’d been on without her mother and brother” (21). Visiting Capri is a freeing adventure for Lucie, granting her a sense of independence and possibility. Furthermore, Italy’s atmosphere agrees with her observant nature and artistic sensibility. She can’t imagine “how anyone […] could find fault with [the] island” and is constantly enamored with the “undulating hills dotted with white villas, ancient fortress ruins commanding every ridgetop, and the sea sparkling in the golden sun” (24). The idyllic environment contrasts sharply with Lucie’s metropolitan New York home and the puritanical Brown University environment in Rhode Island. Lucie feels freer to think and behave in ways she normally wouldn’t while in Capri because its atmosphere and culture compel visitors to engage with the natural world and embrace the island’s luxurious offerings.

Furthermore, Lucie’s time in Capri inspires her feelings for George Zao, begets her sexual awakening, and reifies her romantic and personal desires. The longer she is in Capri, the more the environment affects her. Every corner of the island seems “to reveal a stunning new surprise,” and Lucie begins to regard it as “some sort of Alice in Wonderland dreamscape” (101). Capri is charming and beautiful and influences Lucie’s feelings and behavior. In time, she starts acting on her feelings for George and thus defying her typically controlled, demure persona. “Maybe,” she begins to wonder after she and George become physically intimate for the first time, “she had Stendhal syndrome, being surrounded by so much beauty at that spectacular villa overlooking Positano” (112). She starts to blame the environment for her lack of self-control, convinced that she’s being “overpowered by the exquisiteness of everything” in her surroundings (112). Years later, Lucie continues to regard Capri this way. She sees it as a dreamscape from her past that doesn’t align with her present reality. She doesn’t want to acknowledge her true desires and tries to relegate them to her time in Capri. However, Lucie’s return to Capri with George at the novel’s end underscores the setting’s ability to reveal the truth of her desires and gives her the space to realize them.