장 주네의 『하녀들』에 나타난 마조히즘 연구

A study on masochism in The Maids of Jean Genet

This study is based on Coldness and Cruality of Deleuze, his work about masochism. According to Deleuze, masochism is not simply the counterpart of sadism, but it has its own esthetics and characteristics. We considered the masochistic elements in The Maids of Jean Genet, because the play of Genet has many similarities with Masoch's esthetics. Two maids in The Maids show masochistic elements : they represent the sadistic and masochistic situation through their role playing and consider the pain given to themselves as a moral pleasure. They deny the reality and try to keep the fantasy in their role playing ; the objets playing the role of Madame replace the function of fetishism. The play in the play of two maids, suspending itself in the middle of the climax, provokes an ultimate tension. The denial and the sense of tension, characteristics of Masoch' s esthetics, view a mythic, a dialectic and an imaginary method to define the death drive which could be never given in the world of experience. The play in the play of two maids in The Maids ends ultimately in death. The ritual sacrifice of two maids consists of the order and the description of sexual fantasy ; by playing the role to represent the pain of oppressed people, their ritual acquires the impersonality and the generality apart from their personal situations. The long monologue of Solange plays the definite role to persuade Claire in the process of the play in the play to kill Madame ; it makes accomplish the ritual ceremony which is a kind of regeneration through the death. The masochistic elements in Genet's play, that is the pleasure from the pain, the denial of the reality through the fantasy and its suspension, the use of fetishism, the dramatic tension, the instinct of death and a new generation of mankind, are necessary for the freedom and the liberation of the maids in the play of Genet.