"The Story of O" revisited

Posted by Tanos on Sat 6 Jan 07, 10:07 PM

I first read Story of O in 1993 and at the time I didn't really like it - certainly not its BDSM themes. I could see it was capital-L Literature, and I'd read enough modern fairy tales and fables to read between the lines, but to be honest, I was indifferent to it. I reread it twice over the years with no change in how I felt, although I did start to notice some astute observations and quotable passages.

But during the past few weeks I've picked it up again and now I've finally fallen for it.

Looking back, I think I couldn't see past the weakness of O's original lover, Rene, and the book's promotion of sharing submissives - which is a deeply un-Tanosian concept I didn't pay enough attention to Sir Stephen, and lili's insight into the deep connection between Rene and Stephen, which I'll discuss later, has opened his character up to me. And then the introductory essay by Jean Paulhan, "A slave's revolt", seemed disconnected from the book, and maybe even mere playing with words by a literary critic with no deeper understanding than the definition of masochism. But even that makes sense now.

I originally picked up "The Story of O" again to write the Ownership Wiki articles on the story itself and on the high protocol in place at Roissy - the chateau where the archetypal secret slave-training society is based.

Like "slave training", "high protocol" is one of those nebulous concepts that D/s is littered with: many people are attracted to the idea, and will join in threads on message boards about it, without, um, well actually saying quite what they mean by it. And for those that do have a protocol worked out, they're all different. So they're not so much a Follower of High Protocol, as someone who has their own high protocol.

And yet there are some common features that are usually included in high protocols, and "The Story of O" illustrates them, in the various households (in a Household D/s sense): the Chateau de Roissy, Sir Stephen's household in his Paris apartment, or Anne-Marie's all-female establishment Samois.

The most stringent rule in force at Roissy is the women's silence in the presence of men, and this restriction on speech is maintained for the duration of O's fortnight at the chateau. When back in Paris and falling deep into Sir Stephen's control, she adopts a speech protocol with a form of address: she uses the formal French you ("vous") towards Sir Stephen, whilst he uses the informal form ("tu"), as if she were a child or a servant. And Sir Stephen's servant Norah - an ambiguous character who appears to be a conventional servant but participates in O's enslavement by supervising her dress and inflicting whippings as directed - has a speech protocol of her own, in which she may approach her master to gain his attention but must wait in silence until spoken to.

The aspects of high protocol in Sir Stephen's household extend beyond speech: Norah strives to avoid disturbing her master, as she attends to her duties around the apartment in silent felt slippers, "like a nun", and only Norah is permitted to enter his study but does so without disturbing him by knocking, and if she brings a message or a question, she stands in that silence until he gives her his attention.

O's treatment at Roissy instilled the habits of deferential behaviour, particularly when following the strict protocol for service in the library, where any sign of insubmissiveness, inattention or even meeting the gaze of a master was punished with whippings. O retains this deference to the final scenes of the book: "Directly she was naked, Norah left, and O, once again under the sway of Roissy robot-like obedience to the rule, certain the Sir Stephen desired nothing but absolute docility from her, remained standing in the middle of the room, her eyes bent downward and it was thus she rather guessed than saw Natalie slip in through the open French door, like Jacqueline dressed in black, barefoot and mute."

It was Rene rather than Stephen who introduced O to Roissy, and his feelings when she serves Sir Stephen display the performance aspect often present in high protocol behaviour: "O felt him watch her the way an animal-trainer keeps an eye on the animal he has trained, watchful to see that the animal, upon whose performance his honour is at stake, performs well."

Another aspect of D/s which is well represented (maybe even catalogued) is the variety and symbolic value of markings, including the psychological weight they have when marking a transition in the evolution of a relationship. Sir Stephen initially keeps O bearing whip marks, but then sends her to the house of Anne-Marie to be fitted with permanent labia rings with a tag naming Sir Stephen, and to be branded with his initials. Another temporary resident of Anne-Marie's house is Yvonne, who has her owner's initials tattooed rather than branded, and wears her owner's name tag on her collar.

But the central aspect of the book is O's evolution from submissive lover to slave, and I now see that the deficiencies of Rene, which originally repelled me, are laid out as a gooey swamp from which O must escape.

I'm not going to chart O's evolution in this post, even though the author provides enough detail and introspection by O to map it out in detail. So for now I'll just say that O is handed over to Sir Stephen by Rene, and that the contrast between them couldn't be greater. Whereas Rene was her romantic lover, "in Sir Stephen she divined a glacial unswerving will which desire was powerless to deflect from its purpose and before which, up until now, exciting as she might be, submissive as she certainly was, she counted for absolutely nothing."

Again, I'm not now going to catalogue the many points of contrast between Rene and Stephen, and the ways in which Stephen demonstrates his resolve to O, but eventually O comes to this understanding: "But, objectively now, what was Rene next to Sir Stephen? Threads of paper, strings of straw - such in actual truth were the ties whereby he had bound her to him, and which he had so quickly severed; and that quick, that easy sunderance was what those so frail ties symbolized. Whereas what peaceful security, what reassurance, what delight, this iron ring which pierces flesh and weighs eternally, this mark that will remain forever, the master's hand which lays you down to rest on a bed of rock, the love of a master who is capable of pitilessly appropriating unto himself that which he loves. And, by way of final conclusion, O told herself that she had only loved Rene as a means for learning of love and for finding out how to give herself better, as a slave, as an ecstatic slave, to Sir Stephen."

When I first read the "Story of O", I stumbled at Rene's weakness and his neediness for O's love, and Sir Stephen just felt like a convenient iceberg for him to share O with. But last year lili pointed out that there's another way of looking at them: as two halves of a complete master.

In fact, they're virtually identified as this when O is initially handed over to Sir Stephen: "Will you consent to common ownership? ... Before replying, consider that I am merely another form of your lover: thus, you will always have a single master. A somewhat more redoubtable master, I rather expect, than the men to whom you were surrendered at Roissy."

When you look at it this way, and remember the story is more fable than realistic novel, it's not only O that evolves from a lover to a slave, but her owner who evolves from Rene to Sir Stephen. And that insight sheds more light on the background of the book itself.

When the "Story of O" was published by "Pauline Reage" there was much speculation about the true identity of the author, including whether she was a prostitute or even a man, although it was an open secret in her Parisian literary circle that it was by Anne Desclos, an editor and translator of English novels into French, who also used the pen name "Dominique Aury". Desclos was the lover of Jean Paulhan, who had recently edited de Sade's "Justine". Following the publication of the essay "A girl in love" as part of "Story of O, Part II", the generally accepted explanation was that it was written as an extended love letter by a woman to keep her lover's interest in her, and when Desclos' identity was publicised in the 1990s, Paulhan's interest in de Sade made it all apparently clear: Desclos just wanted to keep her lover's attention from wandering to younger women, who were equally impressed by his credentials in the French literary establishment, and wrote the book to please his interests.

However, if we think of Rene and Sir Stephen as two aspects of a single character, another possibility opens up. From a British point of view, Rene appears to be a stereotypical French romantic lover, and (in flashback) he is described in those terms as he sweeps her off her feet and she falls headlong in love with him at the start of their relationship. What I hadn't considered until recently is that Sir Stephen is not only English, he is the corresponding French 1950's stereotype of the English lover: cold, calculating, stable and demanding.

So from where Desclos wrote (as a translator of English remember), the transition from Rene to Stephen is about a French lover becoming more of an English master. If the book is indeed an extended love letter, as Desclos asserted in "A girl in love", then it was intended to seduce Paulhan into becoming more dominating towards her - or to give him permission to let the Sir Stephen aspect of his character out more. I'm not suggesting the Desclos necessarily wanted him to put the whip about, but the structure of O and Sir Stephen's relationship is based on psychological dominance rather than physical BDSM anyway.

Want confirms this interpretation for me is Paulhan's essay that was published along with the "Story of O" itself. Paulhan's involvement was made apparent from the start, but during his life he merely posed as the man who brought it to publication, rather than as its intended recipient. For this reason, his essay "A slave's revolt" hasn't been understood: he describes a revolt by ex-slaves in Barbados who demanded their slavery back, and he talks about the alchemy of masochism, and asserts that women are suited to it ("in a word, one must have a whip in hand when one goes to visit them.")

This all seems rather simplistic, even to D/s practitioners: O liked what happens to her, so let's write about female slaves liking it?

But with our reinterpretation of Desclos' intent, what else does Paulhan's essay say? Women "have but one requirement, and that is simply of a good master who takes good care to keep his goodness in check and to be wary of it". They say "as long as I am beaten, everywhere violated, I am naught but the thought of you, desire of you, obsession of you. You wanted that, didn't you? I think you did. Well, I love you, and that is also what I want." And finally "there is not a single woman who does not attempt to change the man she loves, and to change herself as she does." To me, those comments are Paulhan acknowledging the request Desclos had made.

It's been quite an experience to revisit such a well-known D/s classic and find my attitude change completely, but I'm glad I did. And along with the observations I've made already, there is the interlaced evolution of Rene, O and Sir Stephen to unravel, and the applicability of the themes of dominance, submission and enslavement to their behaviour as characters.

Edited Thu 15 Feb 07, 10:41 AM by Tanos