Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-15-2012 12:00 AM Human Automata, Identity and Creativity in George Du Maurier's Trilby and Raymond Roussel's Locus Solus Adrienne M. Orr The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Christopher Keep The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Comparative Literature A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Adrienne M. Orr 2012 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, French and Francophone Literature Commons, and the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Orr, Adrienne M., "Human Automata, Identity and Creativity in George Du Maurier's Trilby and Raymond Roussel's Locus Solus" (2012). 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HUMAN AUTOMATA, IDENTITY AND CREATIVITY IN GEORGE DU MAURIER’S TRILBY AND RAYMOND ROUSSEL’S LOCUS SOLUS (Spine title: Human Automata, Identity and Creativity in Trilby and Locus Solus ) (Thesis format: Monograph) by Adrienne Orr Graduate Program in Comparative Literature A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Adrienne Orr 2012 THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION Supervisor Examiners ______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Christopher Keep Dr. Janelle Blankenship Supervisory Committee ______________________________ Dr. David Darby ______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Carole Farber ______________________________ ______________________________ The thesis by Adrienne Orr entitled: Human Automata, Identity and Creativity in George Du Maurier’s Trilby and Raymond Roussel’s Locus Solus is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts ______________________ _______________________________ Date Dr. Melitta Adamson Chair of the Thesis Examination Board ii Abstract George Du Maurier’s Trilby (1895) and Raymond Roussel’s Locus Solus (1914) feature a unique figure, the human automaton, a human being who has been transformed into a machine. Rather than becoming objectified and dehumanized, thus transformed they produce great music and art defined by the single quality supposedly irreproducible by machines— variability. Drawing multiplicity from the sameness of exact repetition in their art, the human automata’s identities are equally capable of embodying otherness and oppositions in a plural identity that remains uniquely singular. This challenges contemporary attitudes towards automation as a fixative, deterministic and reductive, and ultimately dehumanizing, transformation. Linking automatism, otherness located within the self, and creativity, the human automaton becomes a marker of the potential for the malleability of identity that, in enriching creative expression, interrogates the boundary limits of human and machine. Keywords human automaton, human-machine complex, dehumanization, mesmerism, traumatic re- enactment, altered states, nineteenth-century psychology, Trilby , Locus Solus , George Du Maurier, Raymond Roussel, Frederic W.H. Myers, Pierre Janet, performance iii Dedication To mom and dad, without whose love and support I could never have made it to where I am today, with all my love, thank you . iv Acknowledgements I would never have been able to complete this project without the following people: First and foremost, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Christopher Keep for his guidance, patience and support by which he made this project the enjoyable and challenging endeavour that it was. For giving shape to my ideas when they were formless, for keeping me on track when I threatened to derail, and ultimately for enabling me to “sing in my own voice,” I will be forever grateful. I am indebted to all those professors at McMaster University and The University of Western Ontario who pointed me towards those paths on which I was to embark for this project, particularly Dr. Jean Wilson, Dr. Nina Kolesnikoff, Dr. Marilyn Randall, Dr. Luca Pocci, and Dr. Matthew Rowlinson. I want to thank Dr. John Stout for introducing me to Raymond Roussel in such a way that I could meander my way back to Locus Solus . To all my friends and colleagues who have taken this journey with me, thank you for making the last two years in London my home away from home, and making Western my home away from home away from home. To all those who let me put our friendships on hold for a year while I chipped away at this tunnel, thank you for putting a light at the end of it. Many thanks to all those who listened to me and feigned interest as I rambled ceaselessly about all aspects of this project, good, bad and incomprehensible; in particular, to Sherlock, who kept me sane when I needed to be, and enabled my crazy when I needed that instead. And finally, to my computer—certainly, we became one during this process, and I guess I should be grateful that I was not overtaken. v Table of Contents CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION ........................................................................... ii Abstract..............................................................................................................................iii Dedication.......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements............................................................................................................. v Table of Contents............................................................................................................... vi List of Figures................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1 – Finding Artistry in Otherness in Trilby ......................................................... 32 Chapter 2 – The Infinite Variations of Exact Repetitions in Locus Solus ........................ 73 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 118 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 124 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................ 132 vi List of Figures Page Figure 1. Un Impromptu de Chopin 50 Figure 2. ‘And the remembrance of them—hand in hand’ 51 Figure 3. ‘Au clair de la lune’ 54 Figure 4. ‘The soft eyes’ 54 vii 1 Introduction George Du Maurier’s Trilby (1895) and Raymond Roussel’s Locus Solus (1914) are two extremely disparate novels. The first, initially published serially in Harper’s Monthly before being printed in book form, was tremendous popular, bringing fame to an author already highly regarded for his caricatures in Punch . Trilby has been called the best- selling novel of the nineteenth century for its success both in England and internationally (Pick 2). It spawned theatrical adaptations and parodies and was used to market a diverse range of products from sweets and sausages to games and toys to soaps and toothpastes, and of course the trilby hat, which retains its name today (Jenkins 246-7). The novel’s villain, Svengali entered the public imagination alongside contemporaries Count Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, as well as the lexicon as a term to designate a person holding a potentially sinister mesmeric influence over another. The novel itself is a sensationalist and sentimental narrative, set in the art scene of the Quartier Latin in Paris of the 1850s. The conventional narrative deals with the titular heroine, a bohemian grisette and tone- deaf artist’s model transformed into an opera diva. A plot that explores the bohemian artist lifestyle, it takes on such broader themes as the nature of art and artistic value, social and cultural identity, the politics of class and gender, and the boundaries of nationality. By comparison, Locus Solus was far less appreciated at the time of its publication. The book was self-published at great expense to the author, who was well-known but highly criticised for the incomprehensibility of his works. Far from the internationally best-selling Trilby , copies of Locus Solus on sale in bookshops languished there, as “most of them remained, alas, gathering dust” (Ford, Republic , 137). The novel also appeared as a serial publication in an unsuccessful effort to boost publicity and earn the author some appreciation and recognition. For similar reasons, Roussel paid Pierre Frondaie, known for his theatrical adaptations, to turn Locus Solus into a play; this, too, was disastrously unsuccessful. During Roussel’s lifetime, his work earned little praise, garnering recognition only from the Surrealist movement, which saw in it a precursor of its own