Character Relationship Map: Heading South

Characters

• Ellen (played by Charlotte Rampling) — protagonist

  Ellen is a professor of French literature at Wellesley College in Boston who has spent six summers at a Haitian resort. She seeks sexual companionship from local young men and becomes especially attac...

• Brenda (played by Karen Young) — supporting

  Brenda is a stay-at-home wife from Savannah, Georgia, who travels to Haiti because she feels lonely and ignored by middle-aged men at home. She enjoys the attention of local teenagers while receiving...

• Sue (played by Louise Portal) — supporting

  Sue is a warehouse manager from Montreal who joins the other women at the Haitian resort while seeking escape from loneliness and neglect in her ordinary life. She participates in the holiday of sun,...

• Legba (played by Ménothy Cesar) — supporting

  Legba is a local young man at the Haitian resort whose attention and sexual companionship are sought by both Ellen and Brenda. Their shared desire for him complicates the friendship between the two wo...

Canonical Relationships

Family, romantic, and professional connections based on plot evidence.

• Brenda → Legba (Romantic Sexual Companion) — Brenda pursues Legba as part of her holiday desire for attention and companionship.

  Brenda travels to Haiti to enjoy sex with attractive young men, and the plot states that she lives for Legba's attention.

• Ellen → Legba (Romantic Sexual Companion) — Ellen's attachment to Legba is central to her vacation experience.

  Ellen spends six summers at the Haitian resort, where young men provide sexual companionship, and she specifically seeks Legba's attention.

Story Dynamics

Alliances, conflicts, and narrative interactions that evolve throughout the story.

• Sue → Ellen (Social Acquaintance) — They are connected as fellow guests within the resort community.

  Sue is identified as another guest at the same Haitian resort where Ellen spends her summers.

• Sue → Brenda (Social Friend) — They share the social setting and emotional loneliness of the resort holiday.

  Brenda and Sue are introduced together as women among the guests who feel lonely and ignored at home.

• Ellen → Brenda (Social Friend) — Their friendship is strained by competing desires for Legba's attention.

  The plot describes Ellen and Brenda as part of a friendship complicated by their shared interest in Legba.

Story Analysis

The supplied plot follows foreign visitors' encounters with local people amid loneliness, economic vulnerability, unequal power, and unresolved conflict.

Plot Progression

1. Poverty and a Refusal — A mother asks a man to take her daughter away, describing her husband's disappearance and her inability to pay for the girl's education. The man refuses, establishing the vulnerability surrounding the...
2. The Resort's Uneasy Comfort — Foreign women spend time with local men while discussing money, loneliness, and expectations. Sue feels at home at her familiar hotel but acknowledges that she is avoiding her troubled marriage.
3. Brenda Challenges Discrimination — Brenda invites a young man to eat with her and confronts restaurant staff who refuse to serve him. His account of his nationalist family and the history of American occupation complicates the encounte...
4. Offers and Resistance — A woman describes a colonel's gifts and attention as controlling and asks a young man for trust. She later offers him protection, money, and a way out, but he rejects dependence on her.
5. Return Without Resolution — After the young man disappears for fifteen days, the woman searches for him at a hospital and a prison. He returns with money he says he earned himself, leaves again despite his mother's appeal, and t...