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THE OSCHOLARS: Special
Teleny issue |
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The Spahi as
Scapegoat: The ‘Little Death’ transgressed in Teleny |
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Tiffany Thomas |
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In an article entitled ‘Teleny: The Reverse of the Medal of
The Picture of Dorian Gray’ John McRae posits Teleny in a new light: ‘Teleny, a homosexual erotic novel
published in 1893, and since 1934 largely attributed to Oscar Wilde, is a
significant contribution to the positive working out of a sexual minority
ethic’.[1] Taking McRae’s cue, we can isolate certain
incidents in the narrative and examine their ability to convey the positive
ethic he proposed. Arguably, one of the most transgressive sexual acts occurs
in chapter seven when Achmet, a young Syrian who ‘having spent his fortune in
the most unbridled debauchery without any damage to his constitution, has
enlisted in the Spahis to see what new pleasures Algiers could afford him’,[2] engages in a ‘crime against nature’
at Briancourt’s all male symposium. The crime, as the attending physician Dr.
Charles called it, was not recommended and the host commented that ‘it would
be worse than buggery, it would be bottlery’.[3] In order to understand the act, we
must first analyze the nature of eroticism, and for that we turn to Georges
Bataille. It is through Bataille’s reading of eroticism linked to the
awareness of death that we can come to realise McRae’s significant claim that
Teleny contributes to a positive sexual minority ethic. |
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In The Tears of Eros (1961) Bataille suggests: ‘We are finally
beginning to see the absurdity of any connection between eroticism and
morality’.[4] The implication that eroticism
independent of moral concerns temporarily blinds the subject is an
interesting one. Yet even Bataille’s analysis, though groundbreaking, seems
dated if we consider the frenzied lapse of reason apparent in the Bacchic
revelries that ultimately purged sin. Euripides’s account of Bacchic revelry
reveals the cathartic, and religious, function of ritualistic sin as follows:
‘O happy he! who to his joy is initiated in heavenly mysteries and leads a
holy life, joining heart and soul in Bacchic revelry upon the hills, purified
from every sin; observing the rights of Cybele, the mighty mother, and
brandishing the thyrsus, with ivy-wreathèd head, he worships Dionysus’.[5] Euripides shows us that the link
between eros, suspended reason, and spirituality is ancient, and perhaps even
universal. Bataille’s link is similar in that it perceives the cathartic
function of eros unified with the consciousness of death in what he terms the
‘Little Death’, or orgasm. It is difficult to see how death and eroticism
linked are not opposed to life given the procreative end of sexual desire.
Unless, that is, we return to the idea that eroticism is not connected to
morality, but, as Euripides sees it, spirituality and joy. Bataille asks: |
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Speaking
from within the utilitarian limits of reason, we can see the practical sense
and the necessity of sexual disorder. But for their part, were those who gave
the name of “little death”[6] to the culminating moment wrong to have
perceived its funereal sense?[7] |
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Sexual disorder, or lapse
of reason, enables us to purge our desire in a manner that closely resembles
a violent act, sexual penetration. As we know, the object of desire varies
per subject’s sexual orientation, but we must realise that one’s orientation
or preference is not the point; rather the (frenzied) suspension of reason
that precipitates the sexual act is what really matters. |
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With this basic
understanding of eroticism and the ‘little death’, we can return to the Spahi
as scapegoat and analyse the culminating scene of Briancourt’s symposium with
McRae’s ‘positive homosexual ethic’ in mind. We already know that Achmet is a
foreigner, which, according to Renè Girard, characterises the scapegoat.
First, Girard explains the historical function of the scapegoat: |
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The ritual consisted of
driving into the wilderness a goat on which all the sins of Israel had been
laid. The high priest placed his hands on the head of the goat, and this act
was supposed to transfer onto the animal everything likely to poison
relations between members of the community. The effectiveness of the ritual
was the idea that the sins were expelled with the goat and then the community
was rid of them.[8] |
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In its original sense and
practice, the ritual of expulsion depended on animal, not human, sacrifice
and thus ridding the contagion was acceptable. Girard conjectures that ‘in a
distant period when the ritual was effective as ritual, the transfer of the
community’s transgressions onto the goat must have been facilitated by the
bad reputation of this animal, by its nauseating odor and its aggressive
sexual drive’.[9] When animal sacrifice went out of fashion
as a result of its ineffectiveness we continued the practice of expulsion by
other socially acceptable means. The notion of the social outcast, for
example, retained popularity and this is evident in the lives of our exiled
poets Ovid and Dante, in the plays of William Shakespeare, and even more
obvious in the life and death of Socrates, and more recently in the parallel
life, imprisonment, and death of Oscar Wilde. |
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So how might Achmet, a
Syrian outcast, fit the model? It is Achmet himself who claims the Arabs ‘are
not men, they are lions; and they roar to lusty purpose’.[10] Furthermore, he enlisted in the
Spahis as a means to that lusty end. Rather pointedly, Achmet willfully
submits to be the lamb before the lions. His service, therefore, was
motivated by sexual gratification and self-sacrifice, not the call to
military duty. Achmet’s outsider status positions him as a classical
scapegoat figure. Indeed, Achmet subverts the traditional notion of the
sacrificial scapegoat by electing to be scapegoated. Achmet’s transgression
can be viewed as a ritualistic sacrificial act in the sense that it
precipitates his suicide and thereby cleanses the community of the sin
against nature. Traditionally, as we have seen with Girard’s analysis, the
function of the scapegoat is to rid the community of contagion, and the real
threat to the positive homosexual ethic here is the unnatural act of
bottlery, not mutual human sexual desire. Achmet chose to cross the threshold
of natural desire despite the highest plea from his community, Dr. Charles’s
professional opinion. |
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The shock of horror that
accompanies the bottle’s breakage in Achmet’s anus is actually anti-climactic
because, as foreshadowed earlier, it leads to an emergency operation that can
only be performed by Dr. Charles with minimal instruments and maximal invasion
and risk of infection and swelling. Des Grieux reflects that Achmet ‘suffered
the most excruciating pains like a Stoic without uttering a cry or a groan;
his courage was indeed worthy of a better cause’.[11] Nevertheless, the intestines were
pierced and Achmet’s refusal to seek treatment in a hospital was based on the
fear of being exposed. He chooses, rather, to go home, arrange his affairs,
and shoot himself. ‘This and another case which happened shortly afterwards,’
explains Des Grieux, ‘cast a dampness on us all, and for some time put an end
to Briancourt’s symposiums’.[12] So we can see how the sacrificial act
silenced the desire to engage in similar acts and orgies—for some time. |
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We must also recall the
pedagogic eros that this incident threatened to undermine at a critical
period in its acceptance. As Linda Dowling explains: |
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Such writers as Walter
Pater and John Addington Symonds would deduce from Plato’s own writings an
apology for male love as something not only noble but infinitely more
ennobling than an exploded Christianity and those sexual taboos and legal
proscriptions inspired by its dogmas.[13] |
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Bottlery was hardly a step
toward the Hellenic ideal and if we are to properly understand the
undercurrent of Achmet’s experience, we must be willing to see him as a
contagion to the community, albeit self-imposed. His role as scapegoat
therefore fulfilled the traditional function of purging unnatural desire and
restoring peace (or in this case silence and anonymity) to the community, if
only for a time. |
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Unlike the other
transgressive incidents that resulted in violence and death, such as the
consumptive whore’s death in chapter three, and the maid’s rape and
subsequent suicide in chapter five, the inverted structure of Achmet’s
sacrifice stands out in the novel; that is, he induces the ‘crime’ that
inevitably kills him. Moreover, unlike the positive homosexual encounters
between Teleny and Des Grieux and to a smaller scale the participants of the
symposium, Achmet’s transgression is solipsistic rather than mutual; yes, he
enlists help, but the idea and pleasure/pain is his alone. Of course, this
also challenges the notion of the traditional scapegoat, as suggested
earlier. |
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We can argue that Achmet’s
experience, by way of contrast, allows us to see the positive homosexual
ethic embedded in Teleny and Des Grieux’s love story, however doomed their
story is given the legal, social, and, in Teleny’s particular case, economic
realities of the time period. It certainly shows us the struggle homosexual
couples endured and it is no small wonder that love survived the obstacles
even if only briefly. That brief span of true love and happiness is the real
success of Teleny. The future possibility of love when weighed against the
long-term prospect of failed and frustrated desire, desire that has violent
and deadly consequences, is the lingering message. In the end, we have to
come to terms with Bataille’s analysis of eroticism free of morality because
it is due to our ability to suspend reason that a higher, spiritual love is sustainable.
That said, Achmet’s story cautions us that pursuing a life of dissipation and
debauchery depletes the spiritual pursuit of a positive homosexual ethic.
Here, the desire worth imitating is positive desire. |
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References |
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Bataille, Georges. The Tears
of Eros. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1989. |
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---. Erotism: Death and
Sensuality, trans. Mary Dalwood. San Francisco: City Lights, 1986. |
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Dowling, Linda. Hellenism
& Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1994. |
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Euripides, The Plays of
Euripides, ‘The Bacchantes’. London: George Bell & Sons, 1891. |
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Girard, René. I See Satan
Fall Like Lightening. New York: Orbis Books, 2001. |
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McRae, John. Potenza. |
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Wilde, Oscar. Teleny, ed.,
John McRae. London: GMP Publishers, Ltd., 1986. |
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Return to the Table of Contents
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