Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure

DECEIT, DESIRE, AND THE NOVEL DECEIT, DESIRE, AND THE NOVEL Self and Other in Literary Structure BY RENE GIRARD TRANSLATED BY YVONNE FRECCERO THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS BALTIMORE, MARYLAND TRANSLATOR'S NOTE The quotations of Proust's Remembt-ance of Things Past are from the C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation (The Past Recaptured by Fred erick A. Blossom), published in New York by Random House in 1934, and those of Jean Santeuil are from the Gerard Hopkins translation, published in New York by Siplon and Schuster in 1956. For Do stoyevsky's works I have used the Constance Garnett translations: Notes from the Underground (New York: Dial Press, 1945), and The Brothers Karamazoo and The Possessed (New York: Macmillan, n.d.). I have translated all other quotations from the French edition of this book, except where footnotes indicate otherwise. Y. F. Copyright © 1965 by The Johns Hopkins Press Baltimore, Maryland 21218 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 65-28582 Acknowledgments The author expresses his deep gratitude to Yvonne Freccero. He also wants to acknowledge the contributions of Steven F. Rendall, who helped prepare this English edition, and Michael S. Koppisch, who compiled the index. R. G. Contents I "Triangular" Desire, 1 II Men Become Gods in the Eyes of Each Other, 53 III The Metamorphosis of Desire, 83 IV Master and Slave, 96 v The Red and the Black, 113 VI Technical Problems in Stendhal, Cervantes, and Flaubert, 139 VII The Hero's Askesis, 153 VIII Masochism and Sadism, 176 IX The Worlds of Proust, 193 X Technical Problems in Proust and Dostoyevsky, 229 XI The Dostoyevskian Apocalypse, 256 XII The Conclusion, 290 Index, 315 DECEIT, DESIRE, AND THE NOVEL CHAPTE R I "TRIANGULAR" DESIRE '1 want you to lrnow, Sancho, that the famous Amadis of Gaul was one of the most perfect lrnight errants. But what am I saying, one of the most per fect? I should say the only, the first, the unique, the master and lord of all those who existed in the world ....I think ...that, when a painter wants to become famous for his art he tries to imitate the originals of the best masters he lrnows; the same rule applies to most important jobs or exercises which contribute to the embellishment of republics; thus the man who wishes to be lrnown as careful and pa tient should and does imitate Ulysses, in whose per son and works Homer paints for us a vivid portrait of carefulness and patience, just as Virgil shows us in the person of Aeneas the valor of a pious son and the wisdom of a valiant captain; and it is understood that they depict them not as they are but as they should be, to provide an example of virtue for centuries to come. In the same way Amadis was the pole, the star, the sun for brave and amorous lrnights, and we others who fight under the banner of love and chivalry should imitate him. Thus, my friend Sancho, I reckon that whoever imitates him best will come closest to perfect chivalry." DoN QUIXoTE has surrendered to Amadis the individ ual's fundamental prerogative: he no longer chooses the objects of his own desire-Amadis must choose for him. 2 DECEIT, DESIRE, AND THE NOVEL The disciple pursues objects which are determined for him, or at least seem to be determined for him, by the model of all chivalry. We shall call this model the media tor of desire. Chivalric existence is the imitation of Amadis in the same sense that the Christian's existence is the imitationof Christ. In most works of fiction, the characters have desires which are simpler than Don Quixote's. There is no media tor, there is only the subject and the object. \Vhen the ..nature" of the object inspiringthe passion is not sufficient to account for the desire, one must turn to the impas sioned subject. Either his "'psychology" is examined or his ..liberty" invoked. But desireis always spontaneous. It can always be portrayed by a simple straight line which joins subject and object. The straight line is present in the desire of Don Quix ote, but it is not essential. The mediator is there, above thal line, radiating toward both the subject and the ob ject. The spatial metaphor which expresses this triple re lationship is obviously the triangle. The object changes with each adventure but the triangle remains. The bar ber's basin or Master Peter's puppets replace the wind mills; but Amadis is always present. The triangle is no Gestalt. The real structures are inter subjective. They cannot be localized anywhere; the tri angle has no reality whatever; it is a systematic metaphor, systematically pursued. Because changes in size and shape do not destroy the identity of this figure, as we will see later, the diversity as well as the unityof the workscan be simultaneously illustrated. The purpose and limitations of this structural geometry may become clearer through a reference to .. stniCtural models." The triangle is a model of a sort, or rather a whole family of models. But these models arc not .. mechanical" like those of Claude Levi-Strauss. They always allude to the mystery, transparent yet opaque, "TRIANGULAR" DESIRE 3 of human relations. All types of structural thinking assume that human reality is intelligible; it is a logos and, as such, it is an incipientlogic, or it degrades itself into a logic. It can thus be systematized, at least up to a point, however unsystematic, irrational, and chaotic it may appear even to those, or rather especially to those who operate the system. A basic contention of this essay is that the great writersap prehend intuitively and concretely, through the medium of their art,if not formally, the system in which they were firstimprisoned together with their contemporaries. Liter ary interpretation must be systematic because it is the con tinuation of literature. It should formalize implicit or al ready half-explicit systems. To maintain that criticism will never be systematic is to maintain that it will never be real knowledge.The value of a critical thought depends not on how cleverly it manages to disguise its own syste matic nature or on how many fundamental issues it man ages to shirk or to dissolve but on how much literary sub stance it really embraces, comprehends, and makes articu late. The goal may be too ambitious but it is not outside the scope of literary criticism. It is the very essence of literary criticism. Failure to reach it should be condemned but not the attempt. Everything else has already been done. Don Quixote, in Cervantes' novel, is a typical example of the victim of triangulardesire, but he is far from being the only one. Next to him the most affected is his squire, Sancho Panza. Some of Sancho's desires are not imitated, for example, those aroused by the sight of a piece of cheese or a goatskin of wine. But Sancho has other ambi tions besides filling his stomach. Ever since he has been with Don Quixote he has been dreaming of an "island" of which he would be governor, and he wants the title of duchess for his daughter. These desires do not come spon taneously to a simple man like Sancho. It is Don Quixote who has put them into his head. 4 DECEIT, DESIRE, AND THE NOVEL This time the suggestion is not literary, but oral. But the difference has little importance. These new desires form a new triangle of which the imaginary island, Don Quixote, and Sancho occupy the angles. Don Quixote is Sancho's mediator. The effects of triangular desire are the same in the two characters. From the moment the media tor's influenceis felt, the sense of reality is lost and judg ment paralyzed. Since the mediator's influence is more profound and constant in the case of Don Quixote than in that of San cho, romantic readers have seen in the novel little more than the contrast between Don Quixote the idealist and the realist Sancho. This contrast is real but secondary; it should not make us overlook the analogies between the two characters. Chivalric passion defines a desire accord ing to Another, opposed to this desire according to One self that most of us pride ourselves on enjoying. Don Quixote and Sancho borrow their desires from the Other in a movement which is so fundamental and primitive that they completely confuse it with the will to be One self. One might object that Amadis is a fictitious person and tl1is we must admit, but Don Quixote is not the au thor of this fiction. The mediator is imaginary but not the mediation. Behind the hero's desires there is indeed the suggestion of a third person, the inventor of Amadis, the author of the chivalric romances. Cervantes' work is a long meditation on the baleful influence that the most lu cid minds can exercise upon one another. Except in the realm of chivalry, Don Quixote reasons with a great deal of common sense. Nor are his favorite writers mad: per haps they do not even take their fiction seriously. The illu sion is the fnlit of a bizarre marriage of two lucid con sciousnesses. Chivalric literature. ever more widespread since the invention of the printing press, multiplies stu pendously the chances of similar unions. "TRIANGULAR" DESIRE 5 DEsiRE according to the Other and the "seminal" func tion of literature are also found in the novels of Flaubert. Emma Bovary desires through the romantic heroines who fill her imagination.

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