How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She had become an enemy, a threat; he could kill her if he had to, kill her without emotion because it was the practical thing to do.
"Say something!" she whispered. Her body went into a brief spasm, her breasts pressing against the dark silk of her dress, rising and falling with the agitated movement. (6.113)
Marie has just tried to escape from Bourne. He decides that killing her would be no big deal…and immediately afterwards, we find out how scared she is when Bourne talks about her breasts. Bourne's kidnapping of Marie, and the violence that soon happens to her, is sexualized. It's almost as if the brutal kidnapping is the beginning of the courtship for Bourne and Marie.
Quote #2
What he saw inside filled him with revulsion and fury. Marie St. Jacques' clothes were torn away, shredded into strips. Hands were poised like claws on her half-naked body, kneading her breasts, separating her legs. The executioner's organ protruded from the cloth of his trousers; he was inflicting the final indignity before he carried out the sentence of death. (9.14)
The rape here is presented as a horror, but at the same time, it seems like a continuation of her sexualized kidnapping. Bourne repudiates that violence by expressing shock at the rape and by rescuing Marie. Do you think the novel thinks that this kind of violence is sexy, or doesn't it?
Quote #3
"Why didn't you go to the police?"
"I almost did, and I'm not sure I can tell you why I didn't. Maybe it was the rape, I don't know. I'm being honest with you. I've always been told it's the most horrible experience a woman can go through. I believe it now. And I heard the anger—the disgust—in your own voice when you shouted at him. I'll never forget that moment as long as I live, as much as I may want to." (9.70)
Marie's rape is central to her decision to help Bourne and then to fall in love with him. The rape is in some sense a plot solution: the novel needs to turn Marie from someone Bourne has abused into his friend and lover, and the quickest way to do that is through trauma. For Webb (Bourne), a man, the transformative trauma was having his wife and child killed. For Marie, a woman, the transformative trauma is rape. It's these characters' experiences of trauma that bring them together and make them different from other people.