One point Montaigne makes in his essay “Of the Power of the Imagination” is that our body parts—and even our wills—have minds of their own. He argues that because our actions may be out of our control, we cannot always be blamed for them. He also says that desire, too, is rebellious and cannot be contained. This is a concept explored in Diderot’s short story The Indiscreet Jewels. The fact that the “jewels” are able to speak and think on their own and also refer to the women to whom they belong as though they are separate entities (“her,” “she”) reaffirms the jewels’ independence and supports Montaigne’s concept of matter-over-mind.
Desire comes into the picture when the women whose jewels are made to speak are revealed to be dissatisfied with their sex lives. When the jewels divulge the existence of sexual conduct that does not both take place within a marriage and reflect the husbands’ abilities to please their wives, the women face consequences. One woman’s husband attempts to kill her; another woman faces penalties because she desires someone while unmarried. These women are punished for their desires, which goes against Montaigne’s argument. The exception to this trend is Alcina, the first woman whose jewel speaks, who becomes the talk of the town but does not allow that to bother her. In fact, she becomes in a way celebrated by the general populace. Perhaps the reason behind this is that while the other women become flustered, Alcina possesses “a calmness that other women lacked.” Other women are mortified by her situation, but she owns her sexuality; and though she did not mean for her secrets to be publicized, she bears them openly and shamelessly. As Montaigne would perhaps say, Alcina accepts her desire’s dissent against social expectations of women and their sexualities.
No comments:
Post a Comment