Modes of Seduction: Sexual Power in Balzac and SandDeborah Houk Schocket
Book Review
The study of seduction, suggests Deborah Houk Schocket, can provide insight into both the interplay of “desire, power, and sex” and the extent to which “private erotic relations are inextricably embedded in social and political structures” (15). To illustrate that thesis, Schocket works with a representative group of novels and short stories by Balzac and Sand—sixteen in all—set against the backdrop of French society during the Restoration and July Monarchy. Within that corpus, she looks for the “primary motivations that drive the seducers and seductresses, as well as the strategies and techniques they use” (28). In a more general vein, the “modes” of her title also refer to basic kinds of writing (following a distinction proposed by Naomi Schor): “realism for Balzac and idealism for Sand” (16). A brief look back at seduction plots in ancient régime fiction sets the context. The characters in Les Egarements du Coeur et de l’esprit of Crébillon fils may be free to play at seduction in the artificial world of the salon, but the protagonist of Marivaux’s Le Paysan parvenu engages in the practice for very practical reasons in order to better his socioeconomic condition. It is this latter scenario, Schocket notes, that is more characteristic of what we find in the nineteenth-century novel. Part of Rastignac’s education in Le Père Goriot, for example, is his realization that “seduction can serve as a key accessory in the trajectory of social climbing” (40). In Horace, on the other hand, Sand stages an “antiseduction” (47) designed to prevent the reader from idealizing the protagonist. Her analysis of these texts leads to the essential counterpoint that Schocket will emphasize throughout: Balzac seems fascinated by the “narrative potential” of individual characters, “regardless of ethical considerations” (59); Sand, for whom such considerations are paramount, casts seduction in a negative light. The theatrical nature of seduction, in the process of which “identities are created and performed” (67), is the subject of a second chapter, where a comparison of courtesans, Isidora and Esther Gobseck, reinforces the premise that Sand is intent on making a social statement, while Balzac is content to portray “women’s object status for the sake of an exhilarating narrative” (101). Schocket then delves into the “inner workings of desire and subjectivity” (104) which drive the power games inherent in seduction. Utilizing Jessica Benjamin’s psychoanalytic model of sadomasochism, she contrasts what we find in Leone Leoni and Un Prince de la Bohème: Sand’s novel “represents submission as a socially constructed gender trait,” whereas Balzac’s “implies that submissiveness is inherently female” (115). In a final chapter (which seems a bit fragmented and less polished), Schocket concentrates on the narcissistic roles of coquette and dandy, “hybrid creatures bearing a distinctive mixture of masculine and feminine characteristics” (138), who figure prominently in novels such as La Peau de chagrin, Lelia, and Beatrix. Schocket’s study as a whole is solidly done: both introductory and concluding chapters are substantive, she draws appropriately on existing criticism, her own presentation is clearly organized and generally well written, and the book itself professionally edited. The strategy of pairing novels by Balzac and Sand keeps the primary focus on the texts themselves, which in turn lends more weight to her periodic generalizations. Whether or not one believes that the principal interests of the two authors can be identified and contrasted is such a clear-cut manner (or that such an approach is ultimately fruitful), Schocket’s undertaking has the merit of drawing attention once again to the important question of Sand’s place in the nineteenth-century novel. John T. Booker, French Review, 81.1 To see a full description of this book, search our online database
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