|
|
|
|
|
|
to so many moments of disclosure. As narrative this is successful, but, from the viewpoint of the public's moral code, it oversteps the limits. One could not stand another such shock. It would be too much that Fleur-de-Marie should also reign happy and contented. Every possible identification with the novel situation as a whole would break down. So Fleur-de-Marie dies, worn out by remorse. It is what every respectable reader should expect in accordance with divine justice and his own sense of what is right. What new ideas we have acquired fade away as a few choice principles of ethic and polite behavior are quietly reiterated and wisely corroborated. After surprising the reader by telling him what he did not yet know, the author reassures him by repeating what he knows already. The machinery of the novel demands that Fleur-de-Marie should end as she in fact does. It is Sue's own ideological training, then, which, in order to articulate these episodes, causes him to resort to a religious solution. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Here Marx and Engels' analysis appears to us in all its perfection. Fleur-de-Marie has discovered that regeneration is possible and, thanks to the resources of youth, begins to enjoy real, human happiness. When Rodolphe tells her that she is going to live on the farm at Bouquenval, she goes almost mad with joy. But gradually, under the influence of the pious insinuations of Madame Georges and the curate, the girl's 'natural' happiness is turned into a 'supernatural' anxiety: the idea that her sin cannot be wiped out, that God's mercy must be extended to her 'despite' the enormity, the heinousness, of her crime, and the certainty that full remission will be denied her on this earth draw the unhappy 'Goualeuse' slowly down into the depths of despair. "From this moment Marie is enslaved by the consciousness of her sin. And whereas in a far less happy situation she knew how to make herself lovable and human, and though outwardly disgraced was conscious of her real human self, now the stain of modern society, which has touched her outwardly, attaches to her intimate self, and she torments herself unceasingly with this stain, imagining an illness that is not hers, the stain becomes a burden to be borne, a life-mission allotted her by God Himself."
15 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The conversion of the Ripper follows the same pattern. He has killed and, though fundamentally honest, is an outcast from society. Rodolphe saves him by telling him he still has courage and honor. He shakes hands with him. Coup de théâtre. Now the discrepancy must be attenuated and the tale be brought down to earth again. We can ignore Marx and Engels' first remark that Rodolphe turns the Ripper into an agent-provocateur and uses him to entrap the Schoolmaster; we have already accepted the conduct of the superman as legitimate at the outset. The fact remains that he makes of him a 'dog', a slave who is from then on incapable of living except under the protection of his new master and idol, for whom he dies. The Ripper is redeemed by his acceptance of Rodolphe's fatherly benefi- |
|
|
|
|
|