- Email: [email protected]
Female and Desire in Narrative in Puškin's “Bachčisarajskij fontan”
R,_,__c~__n Litemtu~ X X I V (1988)259-274 North-Holland
"NOT DARING TO DESIRE": M~TR/FEMALEANDDESIRE IN NARRATIVE IN PU~KIN'S "B~CH~ISARAJSKIJ FONTAN"
JOE ANDREW
The purpose of this paper is to examine male and female characters in Pu~kin's Southern Poem, "Bach~isarajskij fontan" 2 and, in particular, the functions these characters have in the narrative process. It may be thought that narrative is not gender-specific. Roland Barthes, for example, has argued: "Caring nothing for the division between good and bad literature, narrative is international, transhlstorlcal, transculrural= it is simply there, like life itself".2 However, as even a cursory r e a d i n g o f Pu~kin's p o ~ m a w i l l r e veal, the destinies and roles of the male and female protagonists, Z a r e m a a n d MariJa, on the one hand, and Girej, on the other, are very differently inscribed in and on the narrative process. In order to understand, and, indeed, to substantiate such an assertlon, and incidentally to reveal the implicit androcentrlc bias of Barthes' remarks, it is necessary first to make a brief excursus into the realms of feminist literary criticism. Since it began to re-emerge as an important force In the late 1960s, feminism has presented ,!ncontest w ably the most important challenge "s to a c c e p t e d a c a demic approaches. Feminist literary critlcism has the aim of radically reinterpreting established literary strategies. As Carolynn Heilbrunn said of Kate Millett's So=uuZ PoZ~%~os: "for the first time we have been asked to look at literature as women~ wee men, women, Ph.D's have always read it as men". ~ Underlying this view are a number of assumptions, well summarised by G r e e n e & Kahn: F~4nist literary criticism is one branch of interdisciplinary enquiry which takes gender as a fundamental
260
Joe
Andee~
organlslng category of experience. This enquiry holdstwo related premisses about gender. One is that inequality of the sexes is r~Lther a biological given nor a divine ~andate, but ~ cultural construct and therefore a proper study for any humanistic discIpllne. The second is that a male perspective, assumed to be 'universal', has dominated fields of knowledge, shaping their paradigms and methods. F ~m_~_r~LStscholarship, then, ... revisas concepts previously thought universal bu~ now seen as originating in_particulnr cultures and serving particular purposes.~ The present paper will o~fer a reading, from a feminist perspective, of narrative in Pu~kin's "most popular poem", 6 "The Fountain of Bach~isaraj" with a view to understanding the "particular purposes" of the way male and female desire and identity are coded both in this particular work, and, at least by implication, in Pu~kin's wore more generally. It is important to re-read works in this way, especially those which are part of the "univQrsal camon". This "universality" is something of a myth as de Beauvoir maintalns~ "Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view which they confuse with absolute truth". 7 We, llke Roland Barthes, may read, and be trained to read, narratives as if they were of universal significance, whereas they usually impart a partial if not distorted representation of female destinies and desires. We may begin our approach towards a feminist narratology by considering another kind of "universalism", namely a theory of plot typologles advanced in the 1970s by Jurij Lotman and which has been given a feminist re-reading by Teresa de Lauretis. 8 Lotman's study "The Origin of Plot in the Light of Typology" proposes a number of underlying plot types and character types/functionsg indeed, his work can be read as an extension of that of Propp. Like Barthes, Lotman sees story-telling (narrative) as a universal phenomenon, and one that has a particular relationship with realityg stories re-enact a disturbances "The fixing of unique and chance events, crimes, calamities and anything considered the violation of a certain primordial order - was the historical kernel of plot narration". 9 From this premise Lotman goes on to establish the basic chain of narrative, from which all stories can be said to be constructedg The e l e m e n t a r y s e q u e n c e o f e v e n t s i n myth can be r e d u c e d to a chainz entry into a closed space - emergence from
HaZe/FenaZe and D s s t r s
in Ha2"ra~ive
261
it (this chain is open at beth ends and can be endlessly multlplled). Inasmuch as closed space can be interpreted as ma c~Ive"t rathe grave", "a house"w mw~anm (and correspondingly, be allotted the features of ~-rkness, warmth, ~-~Dness), entry into it i~ interpreted on various levels as "death", "conception", mre~rn home" and so on~ -_~_reovarall these acts are ~ q i ~ t of as mutually
identical,
lo
If w e a c c e p t t h e s e p r o p o s i t i o n s it is a s h o r t a n d .~ s i m p l e step to argue, as L o t m a n n e v e r q u i t e does, b u t as de L a u r e t l s m o s t d e f i n i t e l y does, t h a t n a r r a t i v e is n o t unlversal, b u t i n h e r e n t l y male. A f t e r all, "woman" is one p o s s i b l e v a r i a n t of the c l o s e d space. M e n c r o s s the frontier, a n d e n t e r space to e m e r g e r e b o r n f r o m it, w h i l e w o m e n a r e a f e a t u r e of n a r r a t i v e topology, obstacles, ~ t a g o n i s t s ° Indeed, the h e r o m u s % h e m ale, b e c a u s e the o b s t a c l e is m o r p h o l o g i c a l l y female. A s de L a u r e t i s goes o n to argue= the hero, the mythical subject is constructed as h ~ - being and as malel he is the active principle of cul, ture, the establlsher of distinction, the creat~r of differences. Female is what is not stmceptible to transformation, to life or death; she (it) is an element of plot-space, a topos, a resistance, matrix and matter °z2 F r o m this p e r s p e c t i v e , w e c a n see that "The F o u n t a i n of Bach~isaraj", o r any narrative, is, in the end u n i versal, in the sense that it shares c o m m o n t y p o l o g i c a l features w i t h o t h e r narratives, and n o t u n i v e r s a l in that it fails to give an a d e q u a t e a c c o u n t of female d e s i r e and d e s t i n i e s . Indeed, as d e L a u r e t i s f u r t h e r argues, d e s i r e in n a r r a t i v e is also c o n s t r u c t e d f r o m a m a l e p e r s p e c t i v e , in that d e s i r e in narrative, c a n b e c o n s t r u e d to b e e s s e n t i a l l y Oedipal. De L a u r e t l s argues, "the c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n n a r r a tive and the Oedipus, d e s i r e and n a r r a t i v e ... appears to be incontestable". 12 As elsewhere, she b a s e s h e r a r g u m e n t s o n R o l a n d Barthes, w h o contests w i t h his u s u a l assertiveness= The pleasure of the text is • .. an Oedipel pleasure (to denude, to know, to learn the origin and the end), if it is true that every narrative (every unveiling of the truth) is a staging of the (absent, hidden, or hypostatized) father. I~ Consequently, the d e s i r e that any n a r r a t i v e c o n s t r u c t s is that of Oedipus, a n d ip8o ~uo%o, male, even if the
262
goe
Andre~
o b j e ~ of the desire may be female. More generally, as de Lauretis further argues, the very essence of narrative, or rather n a ~ a ~ v i % ¥ i s t h e "engagement of the subject in certain particularities of meaning and desire . . 1 ~ B e cause narratlv e , de s ire, and, hence, subjeotivity are so inextricably interwoven (for both Barthes and de Lauretis) all narrative texts can be read as answers to Freud's celebrated question "What does a woman want?", but radically reinterpreted as "what is femininity - for men? "15 Indeed, the posing of thi3 question is the very impulse that generates narrative. However, it should not be thought that this is a neutral, open-ended question. As we argued earlier, the w o r k of a feminist narratology, like feminist llterary crltlcismmore generally, is to understand the "particular purposes" of texts. The purposes of narrative a r e a s hegemonistlc as patriarchal literature more generally. Grounding herself on this occasion in Freud, de Lauretls argues that "women mua~ e ~ h e ~ consent o~ be seduced into consenting to femlninlty'. 16 This seems to be one of the essential "purposes" of Pu~kln's poJma, as it is of literature throughout that (or arguably, any other) period, a7 In the context of Pu~kin's text, however, "seduced" or "consent" may be considered rather mild terms, given the violence that permeates this work, as it also does that of Gogol' and Lermontov. la To return to Lotman, we will remember that his hero "pene%~a%ea into the other space and o~e~oomes the obstacle'. Taking this, and other typologles of narrative, de Lauretis comes to see narrative in a way which encapsules the various plots and narrative structures of "The Fountain of Bach~isaraj"z story demands sadism, depends on making something happen, forcing a change in another person, a battle of will and strength, victory/defeat, all occurring in a linear t i m o with a b e g i n n i n g a n d an end. 19 Bearing all these theories of narrative in mind we can now attempt to establlsh the narratologlcal principles that underlie Pu~kln's poems, commencing with the essential plot structures that inform it. "Fountain" can be seen to be comprised of four separate plot-llnes= all four involve sadism, in llne with de Lauretis's formulation. In the pre-prologue (which is recounted in the main body of the text by Zarema) Girej h a d a b d u c t e d the then Christian princess
MaZe/FsmaZe and Dea{me ~n ~amra%iPs
263
Zarema, who had turned both to Islam and to "love'. In the prologue, Girej had abducted a second Christian Princess, Marija, who proves less willing to make the transition f r o m ~ m h l e m a t l c virginity. The peripetela is forznedby Zarema's murder of Marija, while the denouement is the death of Zarema, at the behest of Girej. These four plots form a ritualistic s ~ e t r i c a l pattern, framed by Girej's violation of Zarema, with Marija the recipient of violence in the intervening pair of plots. In all four the a c t a n t - s u b j e c t l s either actually male (Girej} or morphologically so (Zarema), z° while the actant-object is always female. This symmetry and parallelism endows the basic plots and their narrative structure with a ritualistic, almost mythical paradigm, which can he, seemingly, endlessly repeated. 21 "Fountain', then, can be seen to operate on the boundaries of Lotman's two basic typologies, of myth-narration and plot narration, each of which, in this instance at least, demands sadism. The universality ofthe po~ma's plots is suggested by other mechanisms as well. For example, we are told that the ubiquitous Eunuch, acting like Argus or Foncault's panopticonZZes tablishes a ~op~ox ee~. Bon~xasa E ~ e ~ I ~ H C T B e H H I ~ SaKOH CB~T~0 ~ a I I O S ~ Kopasa He CTpoxe HaOJ~0~aeT OH. (11..64-7 - my emphasis} The pattern of the story becomes universalised: the basic, un£versalised paradigm is of sadism against the actant-object, which is, paradlgmatically, female. The "eternal order', ratified by Islamic Holy Writ, is that women shall be enslaved to "love', killed and, more generally dehumanised. These paradigms ensure also that female desire in narrative is ruthlessly suppressed. The entire work can be read as an overdetermined suppression of female desire, almost Gogolian in its intensity. 2s If women do dare to desire, as the collectivity of the harem does not, HeT, x e H ~ p o O K H e ~Hpe~ HH /PJMaTb, HH XQJIaTb He CMeE ~BeTyT B MHh%~OR TIY~HHe. (II. 33-5) they are punished for it. MarlJa desired to remain Christian and virgin; Zarema desires to be a slave to
264
~ o a Anda, e ~
love. Both die as a direct consequence of these opposite desires. Against the background of the wives' perfect thraldom two rebellions occur, one passive, one active, but b o t h l e a d to death. The only role ~llowed female actants is to enact male narrative desire: if this is thwarted they are physically removed from the text. In short, whether women listen to male narrative demands and determination or not, they end up dead. That female desire will be punished by the narrative strategies of t h e po~ma is clear from the exposition. The first ten lines contain an emphatic demonstratlon of female servitude and p o t e n t l a l m a l e vlolence and ultimate vengeance: B e 3 ~ o ~ e n o pa6o~enH=fl ~IBop B K ~ y r x a H a epos~ozo TecH~uc~. Bee 5~u;o m u l e Bo ~BOp~e;
~A~Q@O@OeeR,
Bce
qHTaJ'IH
HpHMeT~ zHeea H n 8 q ~ u H a cy.qpa~xoR e r o m u ~ e . He n o e e A u m ~ v ~opOe.~ue~fl
N a x x y A p y ~ o ~ H~m~pneAU~o~f H B e e r CX.nOnM~WMCb, ~ y m QOH. (11.3--11
-- my e m p h a s i s )
Even the inattentive reader must realise that such an opening allows for no happy endings: that is, what befalls MariJa and Zarema is predetermined, indeed, overdetermined. The rest of the exposition, which occupies about one quarter of the po#ma, reinforces the impression. The scenes of harem life emphasise the enforced idleness of the "mladye ~eny", their slavery. Force, or sadism, is the dom~nan%a in their lot. The Eunuch watches all= even their dreams are not freez H P o p e TOR, ~ e R m e n o T c o H ~ qy'~oe ~ npHsbman
(ll.98-9) As we later see, the euphemistic "gore" is synonymous with the ultimate sadism, death. Women cannot escape male violence, even in sleep. The "eternal order" of the harem has, however, been disrupted, as we finally move into the diegetic present. A "Polish princess" has been introduced to the harem: from the outset, her plot-llne follows the preestablished pattern of abductlon and eventual "seduction" or "consent" to femininity. Moreover, she has
MuZe/FemuZe u.d Desire in HoJ.~=~e
265
been propelled into this enslavement b y y e t a n o t h e r instance of male violence or mass sadism, in that her capture had been in time of war, which in turn had deprived her of her patriarch's protection: OTeJ~ B MOPH31e, ~ O ~
B Z"zzleHy.
(I. 208) =~
Her pre-prologue'had already been detailed and, significantly, it is almost entirely in terms of her Oedipal preparation for her eventual submission to a fem4nine destln~,= 2s OAE:y saSoTy aej~an oH=
qTO6 ~ K e 3aMy~eM oHa BOC.OM~Ha~a c y~c~Jle-,-e.M ,IIe-~x:,e
=pe,~
. ..
(11•169-76)
Once'In the diegetl¢ present of the harem Marlja disrupts the "eternal order" most fundamentally: she is treated with special fastidiousness because, in terms of male narrative desire, she ~s s ~ c l a l . She, as her name betokens, is a, or one might say, %~e Virgin. Her depiction certainly lays great stress on this attribute and it is to have dramatic, indeed, tragic consequences. The Virgin will be killed, a ~ m ~ t t e d l y b y another woman, no longer a virgin, who not only acts as morphologically male, but is also propelled by male desire• Before the peripetela and denouement, however, MariJa's special qualities are such that all the usual "strict laws" are suspended. Stern Girej fears to trouble her, while the Eunuch does not watch over her• Her virginity, therefore, i8 not only highlighted, but valorlsed• In the end, however, even this supreme value will prove insufficient to save her f r o ~ t h e narrative's all-pervasive sadism• Indeed, the violent death of the Virgin, which is commemoratQd in the monument which provides the po#mu's title, is to be the supreme narrative moment. The agent of her death is merely mo~phoZog~ouZZ¥ male• Zarema, in terms of the Romantic duality of the podmG is a oontrastive type, 2s yet their plots have several significant similarities• This in turn tends to ttniversallse the narrative yet further• Although Zarema appears relatively early in the podmu's die~ getic present (ll•131ff.) her real entry into the plot is on the fateful night that she and Marlja are to die= ~7 in terms of the oh~o,o%opos of the work her presence, while dramatic, is short-lived. Just as she
266
J o e And~e~
had been Initially chosen from a crowd of w o m ~ n b y Girej (ii.373ff.) her brief participation as an actantsubject is clearly marked: "Vse ~eny G~jat. Ne splt odna j (1.297). She is set apart from the other women not only by having been chosen as a favourit~ by Girej, but b y h e r desire to remain such. Her desire is to generate the remaining, climactic part of the narrative, but her desire is clearly constituted by Girej, that is by her desire to be his love object. 2e It is interesting that her unbroken monologue to Marija is the only significant utterance by any character in the work, yet it is entirely in terms of how she had first been "seduced" and then "consented" to male desire and, hence, male definitions of femininity. She, llke Marija, is afforded an OedIpal past. =9 Also like Marlja she had been a Christian princess elsewhere and had been abducted to the harem. But unlike Marija she had willingly, obediently anticipated her "seduction" or violation: B ~e31~J:JL'T~wHOR Tl~mIHe B TeHH ~ a p ~ pacD~eT~L~a H nepsMXOlllgTOS ~ g U
noc~¥~Hu~ c e P ~ u e M o m ~ a n a . Xe~aH~ Ta~e MO~ C~n~cb. ( 1 1 . 3 6 4 - 9 - my e m p h a s i s ) There are here a number of significant details..She h a d a w a i t e d " l o v e " (a g r o s s e u p h e m i s m i n t h e c o n t e x t of enslavement) with an "obedient heart". Not only had sheconsented to male desire, but she herself had desired her enslavement. Since her "desires came true" she had remained happy, before Marija's arrival, of course. In short, her plot and especially this Oedipal past, can be seen as a perfect male erotic fantasy= she h a d b e e n a virgin who had not only consented but had desired to be a whore. Zarema speaks on for seventy-nine lines. She is clearly a self-uttering subject at this point. Equally clearly, she is not self-determining as her desires and actions are entirely located within the discourse of male desire. In the end she beoomos, at least mor~ phologlcally, male in her murder of the less compliant virgin, significantly w l t h t h e phallic knife, s" However, in the context of this classically patriarchal narrative, to act as male is insufficient as Zarema also pays with her llfe. It is also of interest that the central, indeed, the only dramatic interchange in the work is between
Ha~e/Fsm~e ~ d Desk,s ~n ~ e ~ G % ~ v e
267
two women. Yet, although Zarema recognises that "he tvoja vlna" (I. 391) th~re can be no question of "sisterly" feelings between the two women. 3; In an economy of male desire women mus% be deadly rivals: + their fight to the death for the love of the Father can be regarded as another male fantasy. That the poem= is, indeed, constructed exclusively in terms of male desire is echoed in the epilogue to the work. Here the narrator visits the now-abandoned harem and evokes the twin female ghosts, the "~istaja duma" (1.543) of Marija and Zarema "revnost'ju dyes" (1.545}. Even after death the two women are defined in terms of their polarised sexuality, as the male narrator understands it. Given that all four plots, the prologues, the main action and the epilogue are all constituted by male desire {whether of the character of Girej, the narrator, or, indeed, the reader} it is hardly surprising that, by contrast, female desire is both disruptive and, ultlm~tely, destructive, sz Marija, by withholding her consent to femininity (though r~maining archetypally f~nlnine in another way} disrupts the mutuality of GireJ and Zarema, while Zaremats dramatic intervention leads to two deaths, the closure of the harem (with unknown cost to the other "~eny robkie" [1.33]} and to Girej's bathetic return to war, that is, to the perpetuation of the scenes of devastation which had surrounded Marina's abduction. In the broader context of the poSm= female desire not only causes the peripetela, but is genuinely catastrophic. Marija and Zarema together threaten to disturb the entire patriarchal order of the text, and, by implication, the entire narrative order. Indeed, one must take.this one stage further to suggest that to d~s%u~b %he pu%2.~u~ohu~ o~de~ ~s %0 disturb na~u%~ve, and ~ o e ve~su. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of "The Fountain of Bach~Isaraj" in the present context is tha.t the work appears to be concerned with female sexuality, desire and destiny, while it is actually constructed almost entirely by male desire and presence. Girej himself may cut a pathetic and bathetic figure, but his desire, coupled with that of the narrator and reader, as well as the omnipresence of the eunuch, do control all aspects of the narrative. He begins and ends all narrative lines, both within and beyond the diegetic frame. However ridiculous his return ,~o martial valour and values may be, it does signal a r e b i r t h of sorts, which for Lotman is one of the ~ssential features of narrative. 3s It can be argued, then, that the work creates two polarised female types, the Virgin and the whore, suppresses, indeed, exterminates the desire of
268
Joo
And~e~
both, thereby valorising the desire of the male, even though the male character, Girej, remains at a bathetically ~mblematic level. In these terms, it is important to return to the four drum=%~a pe~eonua of the po~ma, Girej, the eunuch • and the two women, to assess their respective roles in the narrative process. That Girej is to control all narrative processes and all desire is signalled by the opening of the po~mu. His name is the first word and "Odin", referring to him, stands at the head of line 12. This famous, iconic opening description is reprised later (ll.102ff.) to emphasize his lowering presence. As we have already noted, his plot partially re-enacts Lotman's typology of "death - sexual relations - rebirth", s~ When he does return to war his drooping phallic sabre underscores another note: the Stern Father has been unmanned by "love". In this rebirth, Girej fulfils yet another typological narrative function in that women are encountered by the questing male hero as obstacles, who "must be slain or defeated so that he can go forward to fulfil his destiny - and his story", ss In the end, Marija and Zarema are, indeed, merely obstacles in Girej's story and both are, of course, slain. The unnamed Eunuch plays an equally important part in the text's relentless extirpation of female desire. He is perfectly suited for this role in the sense that he himself is deprived of all desire, and so is f r e e of "temptation" and can resist the "dangerous" wiles of the "deceitful" wives. Moreover, because he intermittently reappears, including on the fateful night, he becomes the embodiment of the " v e ~ n y j p o r j a d o k " which controls women. Indeed, the text makes explicit this function of the "Stra~ nade~nyj" (1.269): E M y H S B e c T e H XeHCKHR HpaB; OH Hcm~za~, c K o ~ oH ~yKaB H Ha cBoSo~e H B HeBo~e: Bsop HP~KHhIR, C~e3 yIlpeK HeMOR He B~aCTH~ Ha~ e~o ~ymoR$ OH HM 5~Ke He BepHT 50~e.
(ll. 74-9) Because he cannot be deceived, female sexuality, which llke the unconscious (and tho two are closely connected), threatens constantly to return to disturb the "eternal [patriarchal] order", can be suppressed by hlm. As we have noted, the women cannot escape his watchful gaze even when asleep. At no %~me can women be free, as
HaZe/~ema~o and D e a i r e in Harra~ivo
269
Ero pea~*,r~ B3op H c,nyx 3a aceb'~ c,nej~eT ece~acHo.
(11.61-2 - my emphasis) Equally, however, this surveillance reveals the fear inherent in male desire. So dangerous are women and their desire to men that they must be permanently guarded. Women do dare to desire~ but must be prevented frca expressing this desire. If they~do express it, they are slain. Such, the text suggests, is the "ve~nyj porjadok". It is indeed a mark of the text's valorisation of Marija's virginity that the panopticon is removed from her. The Eunuch's is not the only male gaze which surveys the women. Behind him' stands Girej and the "eternal order" of Islam, and p a t r l a r c h y m o r e generally. But the narrator and reader are also implicated i n this process. The opening quarter of the po~ma details the wives' daily round in the harem and we are invited to gaze on "seductive", quasi-pornographic n6 scenes of the "plennicy mladye" (1.81) bathing in a "Prelestnia obna~ennyj roj" (1.87). As is o f t e n t h e case in the literature of the period, sT women's bodies, naked or seml-naked are displayed to the admiring male gaze. The point of v i e w ( i n the literal as well as literary sense) is clearly male throughout the text. Furthermore, this voice often speaks dupllcitously. This duplicity is perhaps most evident in the "TatarskaJa Pesnja", sung by "~es' garem" (i. 122, - my emphasis), which acclaims Girej more blessed than a Hadji or~Mar tyr for Islam, because he loves Zarema. The women sing to praise "love" in the harem, although this "love" is merely yet another instance of the sadism of the narrative. Women are slaves, yet they sing Joyfully of this enslavement. Indeed, as we have already seen, Zarema recalls her own violation fondly. Women, then,.in the harem are usually silenced. When they do speak, as in their song or in Zarema's monologue, the female utterance is merely a form of ventriloquism. It is male desire that speaks through them. In reverse, Marija utters only one and a half lines (11.342-3), so that her inner life se is mediated entirely through the desire and voice of the male narrator. The narrator is specifically male ( " J a p o s e t i l " - 1.507) and he not only tells us the tale, but enters it twice. He seems t o be present on the f a t e f u l n i g h t ("Ja sly~u" - 1.255) :and so his account o f t h e s e events has the frisson of immediacy a n d v o y e u r i s m ; s9 When he returns to visit the now deserted harem he identifies himself with the view of women expressed in the main
270
Joe Andrem
body of the text, recalling "stol' ~e milyj vzgljad" (1.547) and the torments his former love had caused him: METe~KH~MCHaM/~05~H He~acTHOR
3an~aqeHa TOSO~ ~aHb
(11.553-4) Finally, the addressee of the po~m~ is also explicitly male, as well as implicitly so= "~'Ju ten', o drugl, videl ja?" (1.539). In sum, then, it can be argued that on every level the narrative is constructed by and for the male perspective. Paradoxically, the two central actants are female. Despite this, the text never allows their desire to speak, still less to be fulfilled. Indeed, in turning to the representation of the female character in the po~mu, the first point to be reiterated is the extent to which the text silences women. As we have already seen, the opening lines emphasise, ~n~e~ uZ~a the absence of the female voice (bezmolvno, tlcho). This note is taken up again in the general description of llfe in the harem (ll.33ff.) "Cv~tut v unyloj ~ g g , e " (1.35, - my emphasls) o Moreover, by virtue of their situation, the women of the harem are persistently characterised by their enslavement. In this, as in other respects, the harem can be seen as the perfect paradigm of the patriarchy. From the "rabolepnyj dvor" of llne 3, the complete submissiveness and actual imprisonment of the women is reiterated, in such recurrent terms as "nevol'niuy" (1.119). Another %opos of the characterisation of this female collective is their youth= all the women of the po~mu are referred to as "mladye Meny" (1.51), or as the doubly subordinated "plennicy mladye" (1.81). They are observed at their leisure, watching the fish swimming with "de~ako~ radost'ju". ~° By their age, by thelr captivity and by their functionality all women are subordinated to and defined by the hegemonlstic male desire which permeates the work. This is seen at the very end of the work as well as in the exposition. After GireJ has returned to war, "stareJut ~eny". Without his desire, women cease to have any meaning and the Sleeping Beauty theme becomes inverted. The two principal female d ~ u m u ~ s pe~8onuo do not escape this male narrative domination, of course. As we have already noted, all the actant objects of the work are women. The two women, Zarema and Marija first emerge as contrastive types, both physically and characterologlcally,~lalthough they have at least as much in common= for Bayley they are "twin loci of nos-
MaZe/~emaZe a n d D e a r i e ~n N a r r a t i v e
271
talgic and erotic reverle". ~z It should be noted, as ~irmunskij has done, that they are more realistic portraits than their Byronic prototypes, ~s and a large part of this greater realism is occasioned by the attention given to their past lives. However, as Bayley notes, they both exist o ~ ¥ in terms of the p a s t ( w h i c h is specifically O e d l p a l l n b o t h c a s e s , as noted earlier). In the diegetic present their only function is to exist for, a n d t o excite male desire. In each case the exigencies of t h i s d e s i r e lead to the death of the heroine. Zarema emerges from the collective background first. In many respects she can also be braced to the Byronic prototype of the dark Eastern (in this case Southern) beauty:~ s Yet, as we have seen, this beauty is also purely functional, once more in terms of the demands of male desire - that of GireJ, but also the narrator and re~,der. She is the "zvezda ljubvi, ~ a s a garema" (I. 136) o As she herself puts it "No Ja dlja strasti roOd.ha" (1.395). That is, she is a focus of "erotic reverie" precisely because she is the self-uttering, perfectly compliant slave to male desire, the Whore incarnate, with an "enterprising animal nature". ~e Moreover, although she stands out from the "tolpoju rezvoju" (io113) of the other wives, she s h a r e s t h e %opo~ of their characterlsation, in that she is young and a slave. Onto t~ese con~non characteristics is imbricated another s~ereotype of post-Sentimentalist literature,~Tin that Zarema is also a suffering victim, wounded and crushed by the sadism of male narrative desire. Indeed, this is the first iconic image we receive of her: Ymu, neqar~Ha H 5He, Ha, Hoxsa~ He ~ e T OHao KaK Ha~bMa, CM~TaH rpo30~, HOHHKHa ~HOR rOHOBOR. (11.137-40) Marija shares many of these features, which, in her case, make her the perfect, almost entirely mute victim of the narrative's inherent sadism. She too is young, a slave and defined by male desire: the only major contrast with Zarema is the classic one of hair colour in that Marija is fair. Like Zarema, she is further pre w sented as a Sentimentalist icon of impotent vulnerability and suffering: B ~e6oAe
mu~o~
yB~I~aH,
MapH~ rO'la~em H ~ p y c m u m . FMpe~ H ~ c ~ a c m n y ~ ma,UUT:
Ee
yHNH~,
OAe3~,
OmOH~
272
J o e And2,em
Tpe~oxaT xaHa x p a T K ~
OOH
(11.214-8 -- my emphasis) Zarema had once been a Christian Virgln. As we know, she had willingly forsaken both these values for "love". Marija, however, refuses so to do and in her brief narrative great stress is put on her holiness and purity. Her virginity is valorised within the narrative, as we have seen, and it is remarked upon incessantly by the narrator. Her very name, of course, suggests that she may be a reincarnation of ~ho Virgin and this resonance echoes throughout the rest of the text. After the "st,ogle zakony" (1.220) of the harem have been softened for her, it is thought that "nekto nezemnoJ" (1.234} has descended to inhabit this world of luxuriant sensuousness = T a M ~ e H b H H O q b rOpHT ~aMna~a Hp~J~/KOM ~ e ~ Mpec6Rmo~. (ii. 235-6 - my emphasis} Explicitly, then, she is "the most holy maiden", and later, this holiness is reiterated in the formulae "Sv~a%Rn~u s ~ o g u ~ u " (1.246) and "5ofes%uonno, ~u~s~uo" (1.251) (my emphasis}. Her identification with all that is pure and holy (and the two are virtually synonymous) is complete when Zarema enters MariJa's cell: ~G~na~
CBeT F ~ H H e H H ~ ,
Kueom, neqa/~bHo osapeHH~R# Dpe,ucmo~ Oee~ ~"i~Om~fl ~ux H ~pecm, ~ 6 e u cu~eo~ CSRWeNHM~o (11.312-5 - my emphasis) This repeated, even repetitive and tautological emphasis on MariJa's holy purity, that is, her Virginity is not accidental. Marlja is fair, young, enslaved, suffering and supremely pure, the very essence of untouched, intact female sexuality. Moreover, it is her death which forms the climactic peripeteia of the narrative, leading to Zarema's death, GireJ's "rebirth" in war and the abandonment of all the other wives. Her death is immortalised in the fountain which provides the work with its title. Although the text decorously refuses to depict her actual slaying, its central event can be seen as a reenactment of Edgar Allan Poe's dictum "The death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic". Indeed, it can be further suggested that "The Foun-
Ma~e/FemaZe and Uesire in Harra~ive
273
taln of Bach~isaraj" is a p e r f e c t exemplar of narrative sadism. The death of the V i r g i n is the fulfilment of m a l e narrative desire. (We s h o u l d note here that Pu~kin~s other two Southern Poems, "Kavkazsklj plennik" and " C y g a n y " also culminate in the death of the heroine, a l t h o u g h the h e r o i n e of the latter, Zemfira, is m a i d e n no more). R e t u r n i n g to the narrative typologies dev e l o p e d by de Lauretls w e can conclude by p r o p o s i n g that not o n l y does a story d e m a n d sadism, but that this sadism involves the v i o l a t i o n of the w o m a n and that the typological pa.-adigm of this Is the d e a t h of the Virgin.
U n ~ e ~ 8 ~ y o f ~ee?,o
NOTES 1. All references to this work are to A.S.Pu~kin, Sohranie so~inenij v desJatl tomach (Moskva 1959-62), t.3z143-58. 2. ~uoted in T.de Lauretis, AZice Doesn't; Feminist Semiotics, cinema (London 1984}, 103. 3. See K.K.Ruthven, Feminist Literary Studies. An Introduction (C-m~ridge 1984), 7. 4. Quoted in J.Fetterley, The Resisting Reader. A Feminist Approach to American Fiction (Bloomington/London 1978), xviil. 5. See G.Greene & C.Kahn (eds.), Nak/ng a Dlfferenuer Feminist Literary Criticism (London/New York 1985), pp.2-3. 6. See J.Bayley# Pushkin. A Comparative C~,,M~tary (Cambridge 1971), 85. 7. See S.de Beauvolr, The Second Sex (London 1972), 162. 8. See Ju.Lotman, "The Origin of Plot in the Light of Typology"e in Poetics Today# Vol. Nos.l-2 (Autumn 1979), 161-84e and T.de Lauretls ~(opo=it.) e especially the section "Desire in Narrative", 103-57. I am much indebted to the latter work for the ensuing discussion. 9. See Lotman (op.Git.), 163. 10. Ibld., 168. 11. de Lauretis (op.cit.), 118-19. 12. Ibld.# 104-5. 13. Quoted in ibid., 107-8. 14. Ibid., 106. 15. Ibld. 111. At this point de Lauretls's argument is influenced by S.Felman, "Rereading Femininity", Yale French Studies, NO.62 (1981), 19, 21.
274
J o e And.2.e~
16. See de Lauretls (op.cit.), 134 ~her italics). 17. See J.Andrew, Women in Russian Literature: 1780-1863 (London 18. 19. 20. 21.
19~3). Ibid., Chapters 4 & 5. de Lauretls (op.cit.), 132-3. Ibid., 118-19. Lot=an (op.cit.), 161-2, and M.Daly, Ggn/Ecolog~ (London 1979),
107-312. 22. For a discussion of Foucault's theories of the panopt/con see M.Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York 1977), 195-228. 23. J.Andrew (op.cit.), Chapter 5. 24. For a discussion of this syndrome in Karamzin's Poor L/za, see J.Andrew (op.ciC.), 22-6. 25. de Lauretis, 150. 26. For discussions of the heroines in these terms, see 3.Bayley (op.cit.), 83-5e and V.M.~.irm~u~sklJ, BaJron i Pu~kin (Leningrad 19241 reprinted M~nchen 1970), 143. 27. For a discussion of the Topos of the nocturnal visit in Byron and Pu~kin, see ~IrmunsklJ (op.cit.), 114. 28. For a general discussion of these ideas, see de Lauret/s, 133, 139 and 140. 29. For a discussion of the role of the past in the characterlsatlon of the heroines see Bayley, 84. For a general discussion o f t h i s t h e m e , s e e de L a u r e t l s , 1 5 0 . 3 0 . F o r a d i s c u s s i o n o f t h i ~ i n s t r u m e n t o f d e a t h i n P u § k i n ' s The Gypsies, see Andrew, 35. 31. For a discussion of the relations between the two women, see Bayley, 84. 32. For a general discussion of this, see de Lauretis, 139-40. 33. L o t ~ n , 171-3. 34. Ibid., 173. 35. de Lauretis, 110. 36. Fo~ a discussion of the gaze in pornography, see de Lau~etis, 148. 37. Andrew, passim. 38. See Bayley, 84 and ~irmunskiJ, 145 for a different discussion of this. 39. For a more e ~ e d discussion of voyeurism (in L e m o n t o v ' s A Hero of our ~-me) see Andrew, Chapter 4. 40. For a rather ~ f e r e n t view of this scene see Bayley, 85.
41. ~.irmunski~, I ~ , 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.
Bayley, 84. ~irmunski~, 145 and 162. Bayley, 84. ~.Irmunski~, 143 and 162. Bayley, 84. See Andrew for a discussion of this.
"NOT DARING TO DESIRE": M~TR/FEMALEANDDESIRE IN NARRATIVE IN PU~KIN'S "B~CH~ISARAJSKIJ FONTAN"
JOE ANDREW
The purpose of this paper is to examine male and female characters in Pu~kin's Southern Poem, "Bach~isarajskij fontan" 2 and, in particular, the functions these characters have in the narrative process. It may be thought that narrative is not gender-specific. Roland Barthes, for example, has argued: "Caring nothing for the division between good and bad literature, narrative is international, transhlstorlcal, transculrural= it is simply there, like life itself".2 However, as even a cursory r e a d i n g o f Pu~kin's p o ~ m a w i l l r e veal, the destinies and roles of the male and female protagonists, Z a r e m a a n d MariJa, on the one hand, and Girej, on the other, are very differently inscribed in and on the narrative process. In order to understand, and, indeed, to substantiate such an assertlon, and incidentally to reveal the implicit androcentrlc bias of Barthes' remarks, it is necessary first to make a brief excursus into the realms of feminist literary criticism. Since it began to re-emerge as an important force In the late 1960s, feminism has presented ,!ncontest w ably the most important challenge "s to a c c e p t e d a c a demic approaches. Feminist literary critlcism has the aim of radically reinterpreting established literary strategies. As Carolynn Heilbrunn said of Kate Millett's So=uuZ PoZ~%~os: "for the first time we have been asked to look at literature as women~ wee men, women, Ph.D's have always read it as men". ~ Underlying this view are a number of assumptions, well summarised by G r e e n e & Kahn: F~4nist literary criticism is one branch of interdisciplinary enquiry which takes gender as a fundamental
260
Joe
Andee~
organlslng category of experience. This enquiry holdstwo related premisses about gender. One is that inequality of the sexes is r~Lther a biological given nor a divine ~andate, but ~ cultural construct and therefore a proper study for any humanistic discIpllne. The second is that a male perspective, assumed to be 'universal', has dominated fields of knowledge, shaping their paradigms and methods. F ~m_~_r~LStscholarship, then, ... revisas concepts previously thought universal bu~ now seen as originating in_particulnr cultures and serving particular purposes.~ The present paper will o~fer a reading, from a feminist perspective, of narrative in Pu~kin's "most popular poem", 6 "The Fountain of Bach~isaraj" with a view to understanding the "particular purposes" of the way male and female desire and identity are coded both in this particular work, and, at least by implication, in Pu~kin's wore more generally. It is important to re-read works in this way, especially those which are part of the "univQrsal camon". This "universality" is something of a myth as de Beauvoir maintalns~ "Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view which they confuse with absolute truth". 7 We, llke Roland Barthes, may read, and be trained to read, narratives as if they were of universal significance, whereas they usually impart a partial if not distorted representation of female destinies and desires. We may begin our approach towards a feminist narratology by considering another kind of "universalism", namely a theory of plot typologles advanced in the 1970s by Jurij Lotman and which has been given a feminist re-reading by Teresa de Lauretis. 8 Lotman's study "The Origin of Plot in the Light of Typology" proposes a number of underlying plot types and character types/functionsg indeed, his work can be read as an extension of that of Propp. Like Barthes, Lotman sees story-telling (narrative) as a universal phenomenon, and one that has a particular relationship with realityg stories re-enact a disturbances "The fixing of unique and chance events, crimes, calamities and anything considered the violation of a certain primordial order - was the historical kernel of plot narration". 9 From this premise Lotman goes on to establish the basic chain of narrative, from which all stories can be said to be constructedg The e l e m e n t a r y s e q u e n c e o f e v e n t s i n myth can be r e d u c e d to a chainz entry into a closed space - emergence from
HaZe/FenaZe and D s s t r s
in Ha2"ra~ive
261
it (this chain is open at beth ends and can be endlessly multlplled). Inasmuch as closed space can be interpreted as ma c~Ive"t rathe grave", "a house"w mw~anm (and correspondingly, be allotted the features of ~-rkness, warmth, ~-~Dness), entry into it i~ interpreted on various levels as "death", "conception", mre~rn home" and so on~ -_~_reovarall these acts are ~ q i ~ t of as mutually
identical,
lo
If w e a c c e p t t h e s e p r o p o s i t i o n s it is a s h o r t a n d .~ s i m p l e step to argue, as L o t m a n n e v e r q u i t e does, b u t as de L a u r e t l s m o s t d e f i n i t e l y does, t h a t n a r r a t i v e is n o t unlversal, b u t i n h e r e n t l y male. A f t e r all, "woman" is one p o s s i b l e v a r i a n t of the c l o s e d space. M e n c r o s s the frontier, a n d e n t e r space to e m e r g e r e b o r n f r o m it, w h i l e w o m e n a r e a f e a t u r e of n a r r a t i v e topology, obstacles, ~ t a g o n i s t s ° Indeed, the h e r o m u s % h e m ale, b e c a u s e the o b s t a c l e is m o r p h o l o g i c a l l y female. A s de L a u r e t i s goes o n to argue= the hero, the mythical subject is constructed as h ~ - being and as malel he is the active principle of cul, ture, the establlsher of distinction, the creat~r of differences. Female is what is not stmceptible to transformation, to life or death; she (it) is an element of plot-space, a topos, a resistance, matrix and matter °z2 F r o m this p e r s p e c t i v e , w e c a n see that "The F o u n t a i n of Bach~isaraj", o r any narrative, is, in the end u n i versal, in the sense that it shares c o m m o n t y p o l o g i c a l features w i t h o t h e r narratives, and n o t u n i v e r s a l in that it fails to give an a d e q u a t e a c c o u n t of female d e s i r e and d e s t i n i e s . Indeed, as d e L a u r e t i s f u r t h e r argues, d e s i r e in n a r r a t i v e is also c o n s t r u c t e d f r o m a m a l e p e r s p e c t i v e , in that d e s i r e in narrative, c a n b e c o n s t r u e d to b e e s s e n t i a l l y Oedipal. De L a u r e t l s argues, "the c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n n a r r a tive and the Oedipus, d e s i r e and n a r r a t i v e ... appears to be incontestable". 12 As elsewhere, she b a s e s h e r a r g u m e n t s o n R o l a n d Barthes, w h o contests w i t h his u s u a l assertiveness= The pleasure of the text is • .. an Oedipel pleasure (to denude, to know, to learn the origin and the end), if it is true that every narrative (every unveiling of the truth) is a staging of the (absent, hidden, or hypostatized) father. I~ Consequently, the d e s i r e that any n a r r a t i v e c o n s t r u c t s is that of Oedipus, a n d ip8o ~uo%o, male, even if the
262
goe
Andre~
o b j e ~ of the desire may be female. More generally, as de Lauretis further argues, the very essence of narrative, or rather n a ~ a ~ v i % ¥ i s t h e "engagement of the subject in certain particularities of meaning and desire . . 1 ~ B e cause narratlv e , de s ire, and, hence, subjeotivity are so inextricably interwoven (for both Barthes and de Lauretis) all narrative texts can be read as answers to Freud's celebrated question "What does a woman want?", but radically reinterpreted as "what is femininity - for men? "15 Indeed, the posing of thi3 question is the very impulse that generates narrative. However, it should not be thought that this is a neutral, open-ended question. As we argued earlier, the w o r k of a feminist narratology, like feminist llterary crltlcismmore generally, is to understand the "particular purposes" of texts. The purposes of narrative a r e a s hegemonistlc as patriarchal literature more generally. Grounding herself on this occasion in Freud, de Lauretls argues that "women mua~ e ~ h e ~ consent o~ be seduced into consenting to femlninlty'. 16 This seems to be one of the essential "purposes" of Pu~kln's poJma, as it is of literature throughout that (or arguably, any other) period, a7 In the context of Pu~kin's text, however, "seduced" or "consent" may be considered rather mild terms, given the violence that permeates this work, as it also does that of Gogol' and Lermontov. la To return to Lotman, we will remember that his hero "pene%~a%ea into the other space and o~e~oomes the obstacle'. Taking this, and other typologles of narrative, de Lauretis comes to see narrative in a way which encapsules the various plots and narrative structures of "The Fountain of Bach~isaraj"z story demands sadism, depends on making something happen, forcing a change in another person, a battle of will and strength, victory/defeat, all occurring in a linear t i m o with a b e g i n n i n g a n d an end. 19 Bearing all these theories of narrative in mind we can now attempt to establlsh the narratologlcal principles that underlie Pu~kln's poems, commencing with the essential plot structures that inform it. "Fountain" can be seen to be comprised of four separate plot-llnes= all four involve sadism, in llne with de Lauretis's formulation. In the pre-prologue (which is recounted in the main body of the text by Zarema) Girej h a d a b d u c t e d the then Christian princess
MaZe/FsmaZe and Dea{me ~n ~amra%iPs
263
Zarema, who had turned both to Islam and to "love'. In the prologue, Girej had abducted a second Christian Princess, Marija, who proves less willing to make the transition f r o m ~ m h l e m a t l c virginity. The peripetela is forznedby Zarema's murder of Marija, while the denouement is the death of Zarema, at the behest of Girej. These four plots form a ritualistic s ~ e t r i c a l pattern, framed by Girej's violation of Zarema, with Marija the recipient of violence in the intervening pair of plots. In all four the a c t a n t - s u b j e c t l s either actually male (Girej} or morphologically so (Zarema), z° while the actant-object is always female. This symmetry and parallelism endows the basic plots and their narrative structure with a ritualistic, almost mythical paradigm, which can he, seemingly, endlessly repeated. 21 "Fountain', then, can be seen to operate on the boundaries of Lotman's two basic typologies, of myth-narration and plot narration, each of which, in this instance at least, demands sadism. The universality ofthe po~ma's plots is suggested by other mechanisms as well. For example, we are told that the ubiquitous Eunuch, acting like Argus or Foncault's panopticonZZes tablishes a ~op~ox ee~. Bon~xasa E ~ e ~ I ~ H C T B e H H I ~ SaKOH CB~T~0 ~ a I I O S ~ Kopasa He CTpoxe HaOJ~0~aeT OH. (11..64-7 - my emphasis} The pattern of the story becomes universalised: the basic, un£versalised paradigm is of sadism against the actant-object, which is, paradlgmatically, female. The "eternal order', ratified by Islamic Holy Writ, is that women shall be enslaved to "love', killed and, more generally dehumanised. These paradigms ensure also that female desire in narrative is ruthlessly suppressed. The entire work can be read as an overdetermined suppression of female desire, almost Gogolian in its intensity. 2s If women do dare to desire, as the collectivity of the harem does not, HeT, x e H ~ p o O K H e ~Hpe~ HH /PJMaTb, HH XQJIaTb He CMeE ~BeTyT B MHh%~OR TIY~HHe. (II. 33-5) they are punished for it. MarlJa desired to remain Christian and virgin; Zarema desires to be a slave to
264
~ o a Anda, e ~
love. Both die as a direct consequence of these opposite desires. Against the background of the wives' perfect thraldom two rebellions occur, one passive, one active, but b o t h l e a d to death. The only role ~llowed female actants is to enact male narrative desire: if this is thwarted they are physically removed from the text. In short, whether women listen to male narrative demands and determination or not, they end up dead. That female desire will be punished by the narrative strategies of t h e po~ma is clear from the exposition. The first ten lines contain an emphatic demonstratlon of female servitude and p o t e n t l a l m a l e vlolence and ultimate vengeance: B e 3 ~ o ~ e n o pa6o~enH=fl ~IBop B K ~ y r x a H a epos~ozo TecH~uc~. Bee 5~u;o m u l e Bo ~BOp~e;
~A~Q@O@OeeR,
Bce
qHTaJ'IH
HpHMeT~ zHeea H n 8 q ~ u H a cy.qpa~xoR e r o m u ~ e . He n o e e A u m ~ v ~opOe.~ue~fl
N a x x y A p y ~ o ~ H~m~pneAU~o~f H B e e r CX.nOnM~WMCb, ~ y m QOH. (11.3--11
-- my e m p h a s i s )
Even the inattentive reader must realise that such an opening allows for no happy endings: that is, what befalls MariJa and Zarema is predetermined, indeed, overdetermined. The rest of the exposition, which occupies about one quarter of the po#ma, reinforces the impression. The scenes of harem life emphasise the enforced idleness of the "mladye ~eny", their slavery. Force, or sadism, is the dom~nan%a in their lot. The Eunuch watches all= even their dreams are not freez H P o p e TOR, ~ e R m e n o T c o H ~ qy'~oe ~ npHsbman
(ll.98-9) As we later see, the euphemistic "gore" is synonymous with the ultimate sadism, death. Women cannot escape male violence, even in sleep. The "eternal order" of the harem has, however, been disrupted, as we finally move into the diegetic present. A "Polish princess" has been introduced to the harem: from the outset, her plot-llne follows the preestablished pattern of abductlon and eventual "seduction" or "consent" to femininity. Moreover, she has
MuZe/FemuZe u.d Desire in HoJ.~=~e
265
been propelled into this enslavement b y y e t a n o t h e r instance of male violence or mass sadism, in that her capture had been in time of war, which in turn had deprived her of her patriarch's protection: OTeJ~ B MOPH31e, ~ O ~
B Z"zzleHy.
(I. 208) =~
Her pre-prologue'had already been detailed and, significantly, it is almost entirely in terms of her Oedipal preparation for her eventual submission to a fem4nine destln~,= 2s OAE:y saSoTy aej~an oH=
qTO6 ~ K e 3aMy~eM oHa BOC.OM~Ha~a c y~c~Jle-,-e.M ,IIe-~x:,e
=pe,~
. ..
(11•169-76)
Once'In the diegetl¢ present of the harem Marlja disrupts the "eternal order" most fundamentally: she is treated with special fastidiousness because, in terms of male narrative desire, she ~s s ~ c l a l . She, as her name betokens, is a, or one might say, %~e Virgin. Her depiction certainly lays great stress on this attribute and it is to have dramatic, indeed, tragic consequences. The Virgin will be killed, a ~ m ~ t t e d l y b y another woman, no longer a virgin, who not only acts as morphologically male, but is also propelled by male desire• Before the peripetela and denouement, however, MariJa's special qualities are such that all the usual "strict laws" are suspended. Stern Girej fears to trouble her, while the Eunuch does not watch over her• Her virginity, therefore, i8 not only highlighted, but valorlsed• In the end, however, even this supreme value will prove insufficient to save her f r o ~ t h e narrative's all-pervasive sadism• Indeed, the violent death of the Virgin, which is commemoratQd in the monument which provides the po#mu's title, is to be the supreme narrative moment. The agent of her death is merely mo~phoZog~ouZZ¥ male• Zarema, in terms of the Romantic duality of the podmG is a oontrastive type, 2s yet their plots have several significant similarities• This in turn tends to ttniversallse the narrative yet further• Although Zarema appears relatively early in the podmu's die~ getic present (ll•131ff.) her real entry into the plot is on the fateful night that she and Marlja are to die= ~7 in terms of the oh~o,o%opos of the work her presence, while dramatic, is short-lived. Just as she
266
J o e And~e~
had been Initially chosen from a crowd of w o m ~ n b y Girej (ii.373ff.) her brief participation as an actantsubject is clearly marked: "Vse ~eny G~jat. Ne splt odna j (1.297). She is set apart from the other women not only by having been chosen as a favourit~ by Girej, but b y h e r desire to remain such. Her desire is to generate the remaining, climactic part of the narrative, but her desire is clearly constituted by Girej, that is by her desire to be his love object. 2e It is interesting that her unbroken monologue to Marija is the only significant utterance by any character in the work, yet it is entirely in terms of how she had first been "seduced" and then "consented" to male desire and, hence, male definitions of femininity. She, llke Marija, is afforded an OedIpal past. =9 Also like Marlja she had been a Christian princess elsewhere and had been abducted to the harem. But unlike Marija she had willingly, obediently anticipated her "seduction" or violation: B ~e31~J:JL'T~wHOR Tl~mIHe B TeHH ~ a p ~ pacD~eT~L~a H nepsMXOlllgTOS ~ g U
noc~¥~Hu~ c e P ~ u e M o m ~ a n a . Xe~aH~ Ta~e MO~ C~n~cb. ( 1 1 . 3 6 4 - 9 - my e m p h a s i s ) There are here a number of significant details..She h a d a w a i t e d " l o v e " (a g r o s s e u p h e m i s m i n t h e c o n t e x t of enslavement) with an "obedient heart". Not only had sheconsented to male desire, but she herself had desired her enslavement. Since her "desires came true" she had remained happy, before Marija's arrival, of course. In short, her plot and especially this Oedipal past, can be seen as a perfect male erotic fantasy= she h a d b e e n a virgin who had not only consented but had desired to be a whore. Zarema speaks on for seventy-nine lines. She is clearly a self-uttering subject at this point. Equally clearly, she is not self-determining as her desires and actions are entirely located within the discourse of male desire. In the end she beoomos, at least mor~ phologlcally, male in her murder of the less compliant virgin, significantly w l t h t h e phallic knife, s" However, in the context of this classically patriarchal narrative, to act as male is insufficient as Zarema also pays with her llfe. It is also of interest that the central, indeed, the only dramatic interchange in the work is between
Ha~e/Fsm~e ~ d Desk,s ~n ~ e ~ G % ~ v e
267
two women. Yet, although Zarema recognises that "he tvoja vlna" (I. 391) th~re can be no question of "sisterly" feelings between the two women. 3; In an economy of male desire women mus% be deadly rivals: + their fight to the death for the love of the Father can be regarded as another male fantasy. That the poem= is, indeed, constructed exclusively in terms of male desire is echoed in the epilogue to the work. Here the narrator visits the now-abandoned harem and evokes the twin female ghosts, the "~istaja duma" (1.543) of Marija and Zarema "revnost'ju dyes" (1.545}. Even after death the two women are defined in terms of their polarised sexuality, as the male narrator understands it. Given that all four plots, the prologues, the main action and the epilogue are all constituted by male desire {whether of the character of Girej, the narrator, or, indeed, the reader} it is hardly surprising that, by contrast, female desire is both disruptive and, ultlm~tely, destructive, sz Marija, by withholding her consent to femininity (though r~maining archetypally f~nlnine in another way} disrupts the mutuality of GireJ and Zarema, while Zaremats dramatic intervention leads to two deaths, the closure of the harem (with unknown cost to the other "~eny robkie" [1.33]} and to Girej's bathetic return to war, that is, to the perpetuation of the scenes of devastation which had surrounded Marina's abduction. In the broader context of the poSm= female desire not only causes the peripetela, but is genuinely catastrophic. Marija and Zarema together threaten to disturb the entire patriarchal order of the text, and, by implication, the entire narrative order. Indeed, one must take.this one stage further to suggest that to d~s%u~b %he pu%2.~u~ohu~ o~de~ ~s %0 disturb na~u%~ve, and ~ o e ve~su. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of "The Fountain of Bach~Isaraj" in the present context is tha.t the work appears to be concerned with female sexuality, desire and destiny, while it is actually constructed almost entirely by male desire and presence. Girej himself may cut a pathetic and bathetic figure, but his desire, coupled with that of the narrator and reader, as well as the omnipresence of the eunuch, do control all aspects of the narrative. He begins and ends all narrative lines, both within and beyond the diegetic frame. However ridiculous his return ,~o martial valour and values may be, it does signal a r e b i r t h of sorts, which for Lotman is one of the ~ssential features of narrative. 3s It can be argued, then, that the work creates two polarised female types, the Virgin and the whore, suppresses, indeed, exterminates the desire of
268
Joo
And~e~
both, thereby valorising the desire of the male, even though the male character, Girej, remains at a bathetically ~mblematic level. In these terms, it is important to return to the four drum=%~a pe~eonua of the po~ma, Girej, the eunuch • and the two women, to assess their respective roles in the narrative process. That Girej is to control all narrative processes and all desire is signalled by the opening of the po~mu. His name is the first word and "Odin", referring to him, stands at the head of line 12. This famous, iconic opening description is reprised later (ll.102ff.) to emphasize his lowering presence. As we have already noted, his plot partially re-enacts Lotman's typology of "death - sexual relations - rebirth", s~ When he does return to war his drooping phallic sabre underscores another note: the Stern Father has been unmanned by "love". In this rebirth, Girej fulfils yet another typological narrative function in that women are encountered by the questing male hero as obstacles, who "must be slain or defeated so that he can go forward to fulfil his destiny - and his story", ss In the end, Marija and Zarema are, indeed, merely obstacles in Girej's story and both are, of course, slain. The unnamed Eunuch plays an equally important part in the text's relentless extirpation of female desire. He is perfectly suited for this role in the sense that he himself is deprived of all desire, and so is f r e e of "temptation" and can resist the "dangerous" wiles of the "deceitful" wives. Moreover, because he intermittently reappears, including on the fateful night, he becomes the embodiment of the " v e ~ n y j p o r j a d o k " which controls women. Indeed, the text makes explicit this function of the "Stra~ nade~nyj" (1.269): E M y H S B e c T e H XeHCKHR HpaB; OH Hcm~za~, c K o ~ oH ~yKaB H Ha cBoSo~e H B HeBo~e: Bsop HP~KHhIR, C~e3 yIlpeK HeMOR He B~aCTH~ Ha~ e~o ~ymoR$ OH HM 5~Ke He BepHT 50~e.
(ll. 74-9) Because he cannot be deceived, female sexuality, which llke the unconscious (and tho two are closely connected), threatens constantly to return to disturb the "eternal [patriarchal] order", can be suppressed by hlm. As we have noted, the women cannot escape his watchful gaze even when asleep. At no %~me can women be free, as
HaZe/~ema~o and D e a i r e in Harra~ivo
269
Ero pea~*,r~ B3op H c,nyx 3a aceb'~ c,nej~eT ece~acHo.
(11.61-2 - my emphasis) Equally, however, this surveillance reveals the fear inherent in male desire. So dangerous are women and their desire to men that they must be permanently guarded. Women do dare to desire~ but must be prevented frca expressing this desire. If they~do express it, they are slain. Such, the text suggests, is the "ve~nyj porjadok". It is indeed a mark of the text's valorisation of Marija's virginity that the panopticon is removed from her. The Eunuch's is not the only male gaze which surveys the women. Behind him' stands Girej and the "eternal order" of Islam, and p a t r l a r c h y m o r e generally. But the narrator and reader are also implicated i n this process. The opening quarter of the po~ma details the wives' daily round in the harem and we are invited to gaze on "seductive", quasi-pornographic n6 scenes of the "plennicy mladye" (1.81) bathing in a "Prelestnia obna~ennyj roj" (1.87). As is o f t e n t h e case in the literature of the period, sT women's bodies, naked or seml-naked are displayed to the admiring male gaze. The point of v i e w ( i n the literal as well as literary sense) is clearly male throughout the text. Furthermore, this voice often speaks dupllcitously. This duplicity is perhaps most evident in the "TatarskaJa Pesnja", sung by "~es' garem" (i. 122, - my emphasis), which acclaims Girej more blessed than a Hadji or~Mar tyr for Islam, because he loves Zarema. The women sing to praise "love" in the harem, although this "love" is merely yet another instance of the sadism of the narrative. Women are slaves, yet they sing Joyfully of this enslavement. Indeed, as we have already seen, Zarema recalls her own violation fondly. Women, then,.in the harem are usually silenced. When they do speak, as in their song or in Zarema's monologue, the female utterance is merely a form of ventriloquism. It is male desire that speaks through them. In reverse, Marija utters only one and a half lines (11.342-3), so that her inner life se is mediated entirely through the desire and voice of the male narrator. The narrator is specifically male ( " J a p o s e t i l " - 1.507) and he not only tells us the tale, but enters it twice. He seems t o be present on the f a t e f u l n i g h t ("Ja sly~u" - 1.255) :and so his account o f t h e s e events has the frisson of immediacy a n d v o y e u r i s m ; s9 When he returns to visit the now deserted harem he identifies himself with the view of women expressed in the main
270
Joe Andrem
body of the text, recalling "stol' ~e milyj vzgljad" (1.547) and the torments his former love had caused him: METe~KH~MCHaM/~05~H He~acTHOR
3an~aqeHa TOSO~ ~aHb
(11.553-4) Finally, the addressee of the po~m~ is also explicitly male, as well as implicitly so= "~'Ju ten', o drugl, videl ja?" (1.539). In sum, then, it can be argued that on every level the narrative is constructed by and for the male perspective. Paradoxically, the two central actants are female. Despite this, the text never allows their desire to speak, still less to be fulfilled. Indeed, in turning to the representation of the female character in the po~mu, the first point to be reiterated is the extent to which the text silences women. As we have already seen, the opening lines emphasise, ~n~e~ uZ~a the absence of the female voice (bezmolvno, tlcho). This note is taken up again in the general description of llfe in the harem (ll.33ff.) "Cv~tut v unyloj ~ g g , e " (1.35, - my emphasls) o Moreover, by virtue of their situation, the women of the harem are persistently characterised by their enslavement. In this, as in other respects, the harem can be seen as the perfect paradigm of the patriarchy. From the "rabolepnyj dvor" of llne 3, the complete submissiveness and actual imprisonment of the women is reiterated, in such recurrent terms as "nevol'niuy" (1.119). Another %opos of the characterisation of this female collective is their youth= all the women of the po~mu are referred to as "mladye Meny" (1.51), or as the doubly subordinated "plennicy mladye" (1.81). They are observed at their leisure, watching the fish swimming with "de~ako~ radost'ju". ~° By their age, by thelr captivity and by their functionality all women are subordinated to and defined by the hegemonlstic male desire which permeates the work. This is seen at the very end of the work as well as in the exposition. After GireJ has returned to war, "stareJut ~eny". Without his desire, women cease to have any meaning and the Sleeping Beauty theme becomes inverted. The two principal female d ~ u m u ~ s pe~8onuo do not escape this male narrative domination, of course. As we have already noted, all the actant objects of the work are women. The two women, Zarema and Marija first emerge as contrastive types, both physically and characterologlcally,~lalthough they have at least as much in common= for Bayley they are "twin loci of nos-
MaZe/~emaZe a n d D e a r i e ~n N a r r a t i v e
271
talgic and erotic reverle". ~z It should be noted, as ~irmunskij has done, that they are more realistic portraits than their Byronic prototypes, ~s and a large part of this greater realism is occasioned by the attention given to their past lives. However, as Bayley notes, they both exist o ~ ¥ in terms of the p a s t ( w h i c h is specifically O e d l p a l l n b o t h c a s e s , as noted earlier). In the diegetic present their only function is to exist for, a n d t o excite male desire. In each case the exigencies of t h i s d e s i r e lead to the death of the heroine. Zarema emerges from the collective background first. In many respects she can also be braced to the Byronic prototype of the dark Eastern (in this case Southern) beauty:~ s Yet, as we have seen, this beauty is also purely functional, once more in terms of the demands of male desire - that of GireJ, but also the narrator and re~,der. She is the "zvezda ljubvi, ~ a s a garema" (I. 136) o As she herself puts it "No Ja dlja strasti roOd.ha" (1.395). That is, she is a focus of "erotic reverie" precisely because she is the self-uttering, perfectly compliant slave to male desire, the Whore incarnate, with an "enterprising animal nature". ~e Moreover, although she stands out from the "tolpoju rezvoju" (io113) of the other wives, she s h a r e s t h e %opo~ of their characterlsation, in that she is young and a slave. Onto t~ese con~non characteristics is imbricated another s~ereotype of post-Sentimentalist literature,~Tin that Zarema is also a suffering victim, wounded and crushed by the sadism of male narrative desire. Indeed, this is the first iconic image we receive of her: Ymu, neqar~Ha H 5He, Ha, Hoxsa~ He ~ e T OHao KaK Ha~bMa, CM~TaH rpo30~, HOHHKHa ~HOR rOHOBOR. (11.137-40) Marija shares many of these features, which, in her case, make her the perfect, almost entirely mute victim of the narrative's inherent sadism. She too is young, a slave and defined by male desire: the only major contrast with Zarema is the classic one of hair colour in that Marija is fair. Like Zarema, she is further pre w sented as a Sentimentalist icon of impotent vulnerability and suffering: B ~e6oAe
mu~o~
yB~I~aH,
MapH~ rO'la~em H ~ p y c m u m . FMpe~ H ~ c ~ a c m n y ~ ma,UUT:
Ee
yHNH~,
OAe3~,
OmOH~
272
J o e And2,em
Tpe~oxaT xaHa x p a T K ~
OOH
(11.214-8 -- my emphasis) Zarema had once been a Christian Virgln. As we know, she had willingly forsaken both these values for "love". Marija, however, refuses so to do and in her brief narrative great stress is put on her holiness and purity. Her virginity is valorised within the narrative, as we have seen, and it is remarked upon incessantly by the narrator. Her very name, of course, suggests that she may be a reincarnation of ~ho Virgin and this resonance echoes throughout the rest of the text. After the "st,ogle zakony" (1.220) of the harem have been softened for her, it is thought that "nekto nezemnoJ" (1.234} has descended to inhabit this world of luxuriant sensuousness = T a M ~ e H b H H O q b rOpHT ~aMna~a Hp~J~/KOM ~ e ~ Mpec6Rmo~. (ii. 235-6 - my emphasis} Explicitly, then, she is "the most holy maiden", and later, this holiness is reiterated in the formulae "Sv~a%Rn~u s ~ o g u ~ u " (1.246) and "5ofes%uonno, ~u~s~uo" (1.251) (my emphasis}. Her identification with all that is pure and holy (and the two are virtually synonymous) is complete when Zarema enters MariJa's cell: ~G~na~
CBeT F ~ H H e H H ~ ,
Kueom, neqa/~bHo osapeHH~R# Dpe,ucmo~ Oee~ ~"i~Om~fl ~ux H ~pecm, ~ 6 e u cu~eo~ CSRWeNHM~o (11.312-5 - my emphasis) This repeated, even repetitive and tautological emphasis on MariJa's holy purity, that is, her Virginity is not accidental. Marlja is fair, young, enslaved, suffering and supremely pure, the very essence of untouched, intact female sexuality. Moreover, it is her death which forms the climactic peripeteia of the narrative, leading to Zarema's death, GireJ's "rebirth" in war and the abandonment of all the other wives. Her death is immortalised in the fountain which provides the work with its title. Although the text decorously refuses to depict her actual slaying, its central event can be seen as a reenactment of Edgar Allan Poe's dictum "The death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic". Indeed, it can be further suggested that "The Foun-
Ma~e/FemaZe and Uesire in Harra~ive
273
taln of Bach~isaraj" is a p e r f e c t exemplar of narrative sadism. The death of the V i r g i n is the fulfilment of m a l e narrative desire. (We s h o u l d note here that Pu~kin~s other two Southern Poems, "Kavkazsklj plennik" and " C y g a n y " also culminate in the death of the heroine, a l t h o u g h the h e r o i n e of the latter, Zemfira, is m a i d e n no more). R e t u r n i n g to the narrative typologies dev e l o p e d by de Lauretls w e can conclude by p r o p o s i n g that not o n l y does a story d e m a n d sadism, but that this sadism involves the v i o l a t i o n of the w o m a n and that the typological pa.-adigm of this Is the d e a t h of the Virgin.
U n ~ e ~ 8 ~ y o f ~ee?,o
NOTES 1. All references to this work are to A.S.Pu~kin, Sohranie so~inenij v desJatl tomach (Moskva 1959-62), t.3z143-58. 2. ~uoted in T.de Lauretis, AZice Doesn't; Feminist Semiotics, cinema (London 1984}, 103. 3. See K.K.Ruthven, Feminist Literary Studies. An Introduction (C-m~ridge 1984), 7. 4. Quoted in J.Fetterley, The Resisting Reader. A Feminist Approach to American Fiction (Bloomington/London 1978), xviil. 5. See G.Greene & C.Kahn (eds.), Nak/ng a Dlfferenuer Feminist Literary Criticism (London/New York 1985), pp.2-3. 6. See J.Bayley# Pushkin. A Comparative C~,,M~tary (Cambridge 1971), 85. 7. See S.de Beauvolr, The Second Sex (London 1972), 162. 8. See Ju.Lotman, "The Origin of Plot in the Light of Typology"e in Poetics Today# Vol. Nos.l-2 (Autumn 1979), 161-84e and T.de Lauretls ~(opo=it.) e especially the section "Desire in Narrative", 103-57. I am much indebted to the latter work for the ensuing discussion. 9. See Lotman (op.Git.), 163. 10. Ibld., 168. 11. de Lauretis (op.cit.), 118-19. 12. Ibld.# 104-5. 13. Quoted in ibid., 107-8. 14. Ibid., 106. 15. Ibld. 111. At this point de Lauretls's argument is influenced by S.Felman, "Rereading Femininity", Yale French Studies, NO.62 (1981), 19, 21.
274
J o e And.2.e~
16. See de Lauretls (op.cit.), 134 ~her italics). 17. See J.Andrew, Women in Russian Literature: 1780-1863 (London 18. 19. 20. 21.
19~3). Ibid., Chapters 4 & 5. de Lauretls (op.cit.), 132-3. Ibid., 118-19. Lot=an (op.cit.), 161-2, and M.Daly, Ggn/Ecolog~ (London 1979),
107-312. 22. For a discussion of Foucault's theories of the panopt/con see M.Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York 1977), 195-228. 23. J.Andrew (op.cit.), Chapter 5. 24. For a discussion of this syndrome in Karamzin's Poor L/za, see J.Andrew (op.ciC.), 22-6. 25. de Lauretis, 150. 26. For discussions of the heroines in these terms, see 3.Bayley (op.cit.), 83-5e and V.M.~.irm~u~sklJ, BaJron i Pu~kin (Leningrad 19241 reprinted M~nchen 1970), 143. 27. For a discussion of the Topos of the nocturnal visit in Byron and Pu~kin, see ~IrmunsklJ (op.cit.), 114. 28. For a general discussion of these ideas, see de Lauret/s, 133, 139 and 140. 29. For a discussion of the role of the past in the characterlsatlon of the heroines see Bayley, 84. For a general discussion o f t h i s t h e m e , s e e de L a u r e t l s , 1 5 0 . 3 0 . F o r a d i s c u s s i o n o f t h i ~ i n s t r u m e n t o f d e a t h i n P u § k i n ' s The Gypsies, see Andrew, 35. 31. For a discussion of the relations between the two women, see Bayley, 84. 32. For a general discussion of this, see de Lauretis, 139-40. 33. L o t ~ n , 171-3. 34. Ibid., 173. 35. de Lauretis, 110. 36. Fo~ a discussion of the gaze in pornography, see de Lau~etis, 148. 37. Andrew, passim. 38. See Bayley, 84 and ~irmunskiJ, 145 for a different discussion of this. 39. For a more e ~ e d discussion of voyeurism (in L e m o n t o v ' s A Hero of our ~-me) see Andrew, Chapter 4. 40. For a rather ~ f e r e n t view of this scene see Bayley, 85.
41. ~.irmunski~, I ~ , 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.
Bayley, 84. ~irmunski~, 145 and 162. Bayley, 84. ~.Irmunski~, 143 and 162. Bayley, 84. See Andrew for a discussion of this.