And so to Baudrillard's devastatingly cruel story of the woman who asks her lover what part of her he finds the most attractive, thereby seducing him into platitude and towards his own annihilation as a desiring subject. Having replied that it's her eyes that he loves best, the next day he receives in the post a little package tied with a ribbon and containing an eye-ball gauged from its socket by her own fair hand.
The violence of the act leaves him shocked and speechless. Never again will he cast his objectifying male gaze over the body of a woman with imperious self-assurance. This act of sacrifice has cost her dearly, but it has cost him far more: she loses an eye - but he loses face.
It is in this manner that the object takes its revenge: via fatal provocation and a senseless act that belongs to the same order of events as a natural catastrophe or terrorist atrocity.
How then to respond to the gift of the above ring? Doubtless sent with love, but also a certain knowing irony on behalf of Miss McKeown.
Stephen, I like your new blog. My cousin Tom posted a link to your site. I came along to one (or maybe two) of your Treadwell's series of talks. Hope all is going well. Helena
ReplyDeleteAlso re 'revenge of the object post' above:
As you have said he may lose face, but she loses part of her face. Her gift is a very literal interpretation of his admiration- it's lucky he didn't say that he liked the fact she was kind hearted- or she might be dead!
One can recover from losing face, it's a temporary state, but she cannot repair her eye. If her beauty is epitomised by her eyes then she has given (at least half of it) away.
Is the point that he should value her above her physical attributes, but perhaps also that she has also made a deforming, permanent commitment to him by sending him her irreplaceable eye.
Is beauty held by the owner of the eye, rather than in the eye of the beholder?