Jean Genet's White Goddess: The Search for Woman in Our Lady of the Flowers

JEAN GENET'S WHITE GODDESS: THE SEARCH FOR WOMAN IN OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS by Edith Whitehurst Williams* s ?? \ \ r¦f ? ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW JEAN GENET'S WHITE GODDESS: THE SEARCH FOR WOMAN IN OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS by Edith Whitehurst Williams* Jean-Paul Sartre has spoken so definitively about Jean Genet as person and as writer in his biography, Saint Genet, that it is almost imperative to take his position as a point of departure for any comment about this writer. Sartre's viewpoint rests upon the existential position that the fundamental project is to become God; or, more simply, man fundamentally is the desire to be God.1 His interpretation of Genet's life posits that in choosing to be thief and homosexual, rather than submit to the proposition that these roles had been thrust on him from the outside, he attained the ultimate in freedom, a freedom and consequently a reality which affirms this godhead.2 As an affirmation of life — or at least on mode of affirming life — in a disillusioned or disinherited twentieth century, Our Lady of the Flowers is indeed a mirror of such freedom. It proclaims that man, denied the conventional "bourgeois" materials with which to make a life, still has the capability within himself to construct a life from his own materials — his own sensations, his own sex, his own excrement; that he is, in a sense, his own creator. In this respect the book is a monumental achievement. But to examine the work on this plane alone does not do justice to the author as visionary. The mirror does not select what it will reflect. And the inspired poet, sensitive to truths which may exceed his own selective judgment, often weaves threads of cosmic reality into a total truth which is reflected by his •EDITH WHITEHURST WILLIAMS is Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University where she has taught for fifteen years. She has served as secretary (1977) and chairperson (1978) of the Old English Discussion Circle of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association and is a member of the Council for the Southeastern Medieval Association. She has presented papers on topics in Old English, Anglo-Norman, and Women's Studies at the International Congress for Medieval Studies, Modern Language Association, Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference, Rocky Mountain MLA, SAMLA, and SEMA. Her articles have appeared in ELH, Modern Drama, Philological Quarterly, Phylon, Shakespeare Quarterly, and Texas Quarterly. 1.Jean-Paul Sartre, Existential Psychoanalysis, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1962), p. 129. 2.Sartre, Introduction, Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet, trans. Bernard Frechtman (New York: Grove Press, 1963), pp. 55-57. VOL. 34. NO. 1 (WINTER 1980) Genet's lVh;te Goddess poetic vision.3 These profound realities are most often conveyed in symbols which infiltrate other figures; this is especially true in the prose poetry of Jean Genet. The primary metaphor in Our Lady glorifies the male sex organ, an elaborate synecdoche representing the whole being of the invert. But surrounding and permeating this metaphor are brilliant images of quite a different nature; they evoke impressions of woman as the fearful and beautiful source of life; of male-female union; of a yearning for re-integration into the race of men made visible in the marriage symbols which are scattered throughout the whole book like flowers in a ceremonial garland. The archetype which asserts itself in these images is that of Woman (more often represented significantly as Mother) in her tripartite role, the Threefold Goddess designated by Robert Graves as "mother, bride, and layer-out."4 The mythic implications of the archetype and the curious blend of exaltation and awe it evokes when used as a literary device merit consideration. Graves explicitly discusses the euphoria surrounding an ultimate appreciation of woman and its relation to the poetic art in The White Goddess. In his pursuit of a "grammar of poetic myth" he repeatedly finds a goddess at the fountainhead of inspiration, the Triple Muse who is always the poet's enchantress, however much myths may have been altered to accommodate social change. According to Graves, poets can be judged by the accuracy of their...