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102/2007: Georges Bataille & A Pornographic Surrealism
Summary: Breton‘s Surrealist Pornography and Bataille‘s Pornographic Surrealism - is there a difference?
Description:Georges Bataille's close relations with many prominent surrealists in the 1930s and his
contentions with their ideas have resulted in him being popularly labeled as a "dissident
surrealist"1. I find this term to be inadequate in conveying the complexity of the opposition
posed by Bataille to the general conception of "surrealism" as it had been originally conceived
by Andre Breton -- writer of the Surrealist Manifesto, as well as Surrealism's most obvious
leader. Thus I would like to propose that we distinguish Bataille from Breton by considering
Breton as having presented to us a "Surrealist Pornography", whereas Bataille proposes a
"Pornographic Surrealism", which is evident in his Story of the Eye.
Defining Surrealism and Pornography
In and of themselves, the definitions for the terms "surrealism" and "pornography" have been hotly disputed terms, and it is with this consideration of their ambiguity as singular terms that I suggest that a chiastic combination of these two terms may benefit our critique of Breton's brand of "Surrealism" as "Surrealist Pornography" and a subsequent analysis of Bataille's fiction in Story of the Eye as "Pornographic Surrealism".
Breton tried to pin down the definition of Surrealism "once and for all" (66) in his "First Surrealist Manifesto" as "pure psychic automatism, thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason and outside all aesthetic of moral preoccupations" or an infinite irrationality that was focused on freeing the subconscious mind and producing images of greater "emotional power" and "poetic reality" that would make evident the liberation of man from his preexisting rational socio-political structures through "poetic revolt". But in practice, this frequently led to a systematic production of poetic images based on surrealist principles according to Breton, and this brand of intellectual sleight-of-hand was something which Bataille was always distrustful of, likening it to "pulling a rabbit out of a hat"2. As such, the term "Surrealist Pornography" is appropriate to Breton as it emphasizes the convulsively repetitive nature behind this gratuitous reproduction of "Surrealism", insofar as "Pornography" can be said to be characterized by a finite and "crude vocabulary of feeling, all relating to the prospect of action" -- all of which is exclusively focused on depicting sexual "intentions" and "activities"3.
Breton's surrealism qualifies as a kind of "pornography" in the sense that the essential quality of pornography is that it signifies opposition. The etymology of the word "pornography is aptly derived from the Greek words porne (a harlot or prostitute) and graphos (to describe or write)4, which thus distinguishes it slightly from eroticism in that while eroticism may be considered as singularly concerned with the attainment of sexual pleasure, pornography suggests that a transaction has taken place, which thus gives it the additional implicit connotation of opposition within itself. This is because in order for prostitution to have its value in transaction, "the prostitution of some requires that others be elusive", and for other modest proper women who are not prostitutes or "harlots", any proclamation of eroticism is necessarily followed by a "feigned denial", and only prostitutes may display their erotic value. Prostitution also is related to the religious by providing a profane opposition to the sacred, just as surrealism is oppositional to reality. It is here that Surrealism and Pornography clearly converge in that they both position themselves in opposition to the notion of censorship, just as the prostitute does not censor her display of her erotic value, the surrealist is equally free to be explicit with his break from logical restraints. Surrealism works towards the freedom of man from the confines of logic and reason, while pornography too liberates man from his rationality since the sexual excitement aroused is purely intuitive and does not originate any semblance of rationality. Thus both the sexual excitement which pornography seeks to arouse, and the intellectual excitement (poetic revolt) which Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism tries to provoke through a consideration of Surrealism, are similar in that they represent the same kind of impulse towards excess, in attempting to break through the restraints which logic and rationality have imposed.
At this point I would like to distinguish "Surrealist Pornography" from Bataille's "Pornographic Surrealism", which differs in that the latter does not deny its self-consciousness of the conceptual schema, placing more importance on the mechanisms responsible, rather than the production of surrealism. The Story of the Eye is pornographic in how its characters are singularly driven by their sexual obsessions, and its characters' refusal to self-censor through their defiance of modesty. Its "surreal" detachment of objects from their usual surroundings, such as the enucleation of the eye and its recurrent juxtaposition in other places, can be viewed as a gesture of freedom from the rules of society, the limitless possibility of salvation through dreams (as well as darker nightmares). Yet what is inherent in "pornographic" material is its economical, materialist nature of serving the goal of depicting the erotic scenario, as well as the paradox of the opposition posed by eroticism to rationality. As such, what Bataille presents to us is a "Pornographic Surrealism" that differs from Breton's definition (over which he holds an absolutist sway) in that it readily recognizes its own limitations, allowing it to work more assiduously towards an ideal of "Surrealism". The recognition of the irresolvable paradox is crucial, as revolt cannot happen without the constant threat of restraint.
The difference between the two terms "Surrealist Pornography" and "Pornographic Surrealism" is also not simply an arbitrary semantic shift, but rather a consciously made distinction that helps illuminate the subtle5 yet fundamental differences between Bataille's and Breton's notion of what an ideal "surrealism" ought to be like. In the same spirit, by using a chiastic play of these two terms -- "surrealist pornography" and "pornographic surrealism" -- it also reminds us of the excess of meanings inherent in whatever words in the language we choose to use to denote these ideas, even as the words limit the boundaries of our discussion. What is useful about Bataille's critique of "Surrealism" is how he highlights the dialectic of excess and restraint, which is absent in Breton's own discussions of Surrealism, even as both Breton and Bataille are able to recognise the importance of dialectical oppositions.
Breton's "Surrealist Pornography"
In his "Manifesto of Surrealism", Breton begins by attempting to naturalise the surrealist spirit in the human imagination, and demonstrating how the term "surrealist" could be applied to the creative processes of some other artists, poets and writers who tend not to be considered surrealist by any standards6. Breton explains that although these artists might have displayed "surrealist" elements in their works or lived "surrealist" lives, they were nonetheless "instruments too full of pride" and thus could not serve simply as "pure vessels of surrealism". According to Breton, the "absolute" surrealist, such as himself, would more closely resemble a "modest recording instrument", and it is with this quote that we take Breton to task. For this is clearly another example of Breton's tendency towards a sneaky displacement of the issue at hand. Rather than focus on the nature of the "surrealism", he shifts the focus to the question of: what exactly is the "surrealist" recording?
In some senses, what Breton seems to suggest that the "surrealist" should go on to record is indeed "Surrealist Pornography", for his Manifesto relies heavily on emotive, rousing calls to action; an appeal for action which leverages itself on a common feeling among men of the need for revolt, just as pornography works by arousing its viewer on the common desire among men to be sexually aroused by prurient images. However, it must be recognized that the ability to arouse strong feelings does not conceivably form a true or particularly persuasive argument either. Amidst all of this sound and fury, what it actually signifies is not the same as the knee-jerk emotive response one may have to this provocative material, we must struggle to discern the difference between the two, particularly since such strong sensations are involved and are liable to cloud the senses.
In another example of Breton's literary subterfuge, the irony of Breton's self-confessed self-indulgence in his writing should not be lost upon us as one would be rather hard-pressed to describe Breton as a "modest" surrealist. Breton may have claimed that Surrealism intended to free the artwork from the ego of the artist by being entirely absurd and arbitrary, yet as he attempts to carve out a working definition of Surrealism in his Manifesto, it becomes clear that there inevitably remains a certain "form" to this surrealist language, and that its "arbitrary" nature does not refer to a truly random set of choices. The "arbitrary" nature of surrealism can be simply defined as a different set of restrictions defined within a system. In light of this, and in light of the emphasis Breton places on the production of surrealist images as his statement of nonconformity, he can be said to resemble a kind of "surrealist pornographer" when he says his role is to "record" these immodestly created surrealist images -- immodest in the sense of Breton's overwhelming ego, and perhaps also in another sense -- immodesty as surrealist pornography, through the explicit, gratituous description or depiction of surrealism "in a manner intended to stimulate or excite"7.
At this point, it may be useful to consider Surrealism in terms of another stimulating8 image as suggested by Matthews in a review of the Surrealist Manifesto fifty years on. Matthews puts forth that the narrow definition of surrealism as outlined in the Manifesto exists like the tip of an iceberg, of which its real value lies in that it marks "above the waterline, the presence of something of far greater proportions, beneath the surface." This description does bear testimony to the immense influence Surrealism has had in the years following the publication of the Surrealist Manifesto, but I think we cannot attribute the mass of the entire iceberg -- and with it, all the credit for Surrealism's greatness today -- to Breton's Manifesto alone. Breton's tendency towards the displacement of focus (from the nature of the surrealist to what the surrealist has to record) may be read as an indication that that the essence of what it meant to be surreal was not to be found in "Surrealism" alone, and what has truly given Surrealism its greatest power is that it serves as a point of reference which can be built upon.
Paradox in Bataille's Pornographic Surrealism
Bataille builds upon Breton in that he begins by actively recognising the crucial dialectic between excess and restraint at play when we try to define Surrealism or even Pornography. For Bataille, two diametrically opposed views are always possible on any subject, and "there exists no prohibition that cannot be transgressed", and that "the transgression is [not only] permitted, often it is even prescribed". Thus, what Bataille means is that in order for restraint to occur there must be the possibility of excess, and vice versa. Through "Pornographic Surrealism" (as I would like to describe Bataille's reworking of Surrealism), this irresolvable paradox between excess and restraint is clearly acknowledged, instead of conveniently disregarded as Breton himself seems to have done in what i would denote as "surrealist pornography" (that simply focuses on the production of the opposition, rather examining the gap between excess and restraint).
Not only does Bataille discuss the paradox between excess and restraint in his other writings, but Bataille also makes use of paradoxical metaphors such as "rainless tempest", "common isolation", as well as trying to relate the literal aspect of the sight of a naked man on a bicycle to its "theorectical unclean[liness]":
The sort of play in Bataille's works, however, also has a more sinister, fatal tone to it than the sort of beautiful surrealist play of words Breton originally proposed; since in Story of the Eye, many these erotic games as depicted in the novel end in madness (eg. Marcelle), death (e.g. Don Aminado), or injury (e.g. the narrator). The recognition of this constant state of paradox of meaning on so many different levels evokes anxiety, reflected in his works through "invocations of something frightful and uncontrollable lurking under everything" (Lubbock), an image that transforms the calmly floating iceberg Matthews described, to the thinly veiled, seething monster that Surrealism has the potential to be as "Pornographic Surrealism" -- like an eye awaiting enucleation, or a corpse awaiting decay.
Real Revolution Demands the Enucleation of the Eye of reason In the Story of the Eye, not only does Bataillle illustrate the enucleation of the eyes of Granero and the priest, but throughout the entire narrative, he also engages in a theoretical enucleation of the eye -- in reference to the eye as the emblematic symbol of Enlightenment reason (Huxley, 73). The Enlightenment was the time when human reason was first heralded as being sufficient in providing us with an understanding of the entire world, and in the western tradition, the eye has always been considered to be the window of the soul, since the faculty of sight is crucial for bringing ideas into our consciousness. The "noble" organ of the eye has thus been excluded from manual labour, instead it is usually left to float sanguinely and sanctimoniously in its orbital cavity.
However, in Acephale, Bataille states that he rejects reason, and having recognizing the eye as the source of reason, he argues that "the head and its tyrannical organ, the eye, have inhibited revolutionary action from below; therefore they must be cut off and gouged out". He then makes the eye work for us by extracting it out of its socket, and revealing its base nature within, in what we may consider to be his style of "pornographic surrealism". In Visions of Excess, he describes eyes as a "cannibal delicacy", emphasizing the edible and material nature of eyeballs as meat that should be consumed as food; in a similar act of transforming the eye into a material object, in Story of the Eye, he has Simone insert the eye as a physical, round, solid globe into her vagina, a surreal act which represents the rejection of rationality by having consumed the eye, and in terms of it being a pornographic act, it can be regarded as erotic play, which already indicates it is borne of the impulse of the desire for sexual pleasure, which is governed by instincts rather than rationality.
At the "breaking point of the consciousness", Bataille also illustrates a "pornographic surrealism" through the substitution of a perfectly obscene image for a vision apparently devoid of any sexual implication, such as the saucer of milk, the white eggs and eyeballs, and the bulls' balls. Another example of this "pornographic surrealism" at work can be found in the scene in the Church:
Bataille notes that we differentiate men from animals by virtue of our use of technology and our ability to work and produce things using labour. This labour, may also be seen to extend to procreation, which we can also see as a form of labour (which simply produces more labour in the form of workers) , and if work is that which distinguishes us from the animals, then work also teaches us that rationality is necessary to bring us to our desired conclusion. Yet paradoxically, the anticipated result of sexual activity is clearly not the production of children, but rather, sexual pleasure. The allure of the pornographic is informed by our desire for sensual pleasure, and if eroticism is to be viewed in perspective of desire, then when sexual pleasure is sought independently of the intention to give birth to a child, it results in a "irrecoverable loss of expenditure", or as we call it, a kind of "little death". Loss is thus inevitable, as represented by the inability of the characters to speak of certain things, or speak at all at certain particularly intense moments during the novel. For example, the hardboiled eggs, are never spoken of after the period of Simone's brief mania with them, and after the priest dies the narrator is unable to rape Simone although that was his original intention for reaching out to her.
Is Death the End, or is it not?
Having led us to a larger theory of excess and the notion of irrecoverable loss, Bataille's "Pornographic Surrealism" shows us that the constant paradox of oppositions already exists within human consciousness, for it is impossible to avoid dying, yet through death it is our attempt to escape from the terror of dying, and the terror we experience in dying exists even in the space that lies beyond those boundaries. It is this dumbfounding horror of the paradox which Bataille leaves with us, from what he tries to communicate via his text, best expressed in what he says of communication:
Defining Surrealism and Pornography
In and of themselves, the definitions for the terms "surrealism" and "pornography" have been hotly disputed terms, and it is with this consideration of their ambiguity as singular terms that I suggest that a chiastic combination of these two terms may benefit our critique of Breton's brand of "Surrealism" as "Surrealist Pornography" and a subsequent analysis of Bataille's fiction in Story of the Eye as "Pornographic Surrealism".
Breton tried to pin down the definition of Surrealism "once and for all" (66) in his "First Surrealist Manifesto" as "pure psychic automatism, thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason and outside all aesthetic of moral preoccupations" or an infinite irrationality that was focused on freeing the subconscious mind and producing images of greater "emotional power" and "poetic reality" that would make evident the liberation of man from his preexisting rational socio-political structures through "poetic revolt". But in practice, this frequently led to a systematic production of poetic images based on surrealist principles according to Breton, and this brand of intellectual sleight-of-hand was something which Bataille was always distrustful of, likening it to "pulling a rabbit out of a hat"2. As such, the term "Surrealist Pornography" is appropriate to Breton as it emphasizes the convulsively repetitive nature behind this gratuitous reproduction of "Surrealism", insofar as "Pornography" can be said to be characterized by a finite and "crude vocabulary of feeling, all relating to the prospect of action" -- all of which is exclusively focused on depicting sexual "intentions" and "activities"3.
Breton's surrealism qualifies as a kind of "pornography" in the sense that the essential quality of pornography is that it signifies opposition. The etymology of the word "pornography is aptly derived from the Greek words porne (a harlot or prostitute) and graphos (to describe or write)4, which thus distinguishes it slightly from eroticism in that while eroticism may be considered as singularly concerned with the attainment of sexual pleasure, pornography suggests that a transaction has taken place, which thus gives it the additional implicit connotation of opposition within itself. This is because in order for prostitution to have its value in transaction, "the prostitution of some requires that others be elusive", and for other modest proper women who are not prostitutes or "harlots", any proclamation of eroticism is necessarily followed by a "feigned denial", and only prostitutes may display their erotic value. Prostitution also is related to the religious by providing a profane opposition to the sacred, just as surrealism is oppositional to reality. It is here that Surrealism and Pornography clearly converge in that they both position themselves in opposition to the notion of censorship, just as the prostitute does not censor her display of her erotic value, the surrealist is equally free to be explicit with his break from logical restraints. Surrealism works towards the freedom of man from the confines of logic and reason, while pornography too liberates man from his rationality since the sexual excitement aroused is purely intuitive and does not originate any semblance of rationality. Thus both the sexual excitement which pornography seeks to arouse, and the intellectual excitement (poetic revolt) which Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism tries to provoke through a consideration of Surrealism, are similar in that they represent the same kind of impulse towards excess, in attempting to break through the restraints which logic and rationality have imposed.
At this point I would like to distinguish "Surrealist Pornography" from Bataille's "Pornographic Surrealism", which differs in that the latter does not deny its self-consciousness of the conceptual schema, placing more importance on the mechanisms responsible, rather than the production of surrealism. The Story of the Eye is pornographic in how its characters are singularly driven by their sexual obsessions, and its characters' refusal to self-censor through their defiance of modesty. Its "surreal" detachment of objects from their usual surroundings, such as the enucleation of the eye and its recurrent juxtaposition in other places, can be viewed as a gesture of freedom from the rules of society, the limitless possibility of salvation through dreams (as well as darker nightmares). Yet what is inherent in "pornographic" material is its economical, materialist nature of serving the goal of depicting the erotic scenario, as well as the paradox of the opposition posed by eroticism to rationality. As such, what Bataille presents to us is a "Pornographic Surrealism" that differs from Breton's definition (over which he holds an absolutist sway) in that it readily recognizes its own limitations, allowing it to work more assiduously towards an ideal of "Surrealism". The recognition of the irresolvable paradox is crucial, as revolt cannot happen without the constant threat of restraint.
The difference between the two terms "Surrealist Pornography" and "Pornographic Surrealism" is also not simply an arbitrary semantic shift, but rather a consciously made distinction that helps illuminate the subtle5 yet fundamental differences between Bataille's and Breton's notion of what an ideal "surrealism" ought to be like. In the same spirit, by using a chiastic play of these two terms -- "surrealist pornography" and "pornographic surrealism" -- it also reminds us of the excess of meanings inherent in whatever words in the language we choose to use to denote these ideas, even as the words limit the boundaries of our discussion. What is useful about Bataille's critique of "Surrealism" is how he highlights the dialectic of excess and restraint, which is absent in Breton's own discussions of Surrealism, even as both Breton and Bataille are able to recognise the importance of dialectical oppositions.
Breton's "Surrealist Pornography"
In his "Manifesto of Surrealism", Breton begins by attempting to naturalise the surrealist spirit in the human imagination, and demonstrating how the term "surrealist" could be applied to the creative processes of some other artists, poets and writers who tend not to be considered surrealist by any standards6. Breton explains that although these artists might have displayed "surrealist" elements in their works or lived "surrealist" lives, they were nonetheless "instruments too full of pride" and thus could not serve simply as "pure vessels of surrealism". According to Breton, the "absolute" surrealist, such as himself, would more closely resemble a "modest recording instrument", and it is with this quote that we take Breton to task. For this is clearly another example of Breton's tendency towards a sneaky displacement of the issue at hand. Rather than focus on the nature of the "surrealism", he shifts the focus to the question of: what exactly is the "surrealist" recording?
In some senses, what Breton seems to suggest that the "surrealist" should go on to record is indeed "Surrealist Pornography", for his Manifesto relies heavily on emotive, rousing calls to action; an appeal for action which leverages itself on a common feeling among men of the need for revolt, just as pornography works by arousing its viewer on the common desire among men to be sexually aroused by prurient images. However, it must be recognized that the ability to arouse strong feelings does not conceivably form a true or particularly persuasive argument either. Amidst all of this sound and fury, what it actually signifies is not the same as the knee-jerk emotive response one may have to this provocative material, we must struggle to discern the difference between the two, particularly since such strong sensations are involved and are liable to cloud the senses.
In another example of Breton's literary subterfuge, the irony of Breton's self-confessed self-indulgence in his writing should not be lost upon us as one would be rather hard-pressed to describe Breton as a "modest" surrealist. Breton may have claimed that Surrealism intended to free the artwork from the ego of the artist by being entirely absurd and arbitrary, yet as he attempts to carve out a working definition of Surrealism in his Manifesto, it becomes clear that there inevitably remains a certain "form" to this surrealist language, and that its "arbitrary" nature does not refer to a truly random set of choices. The "arbitrary" nature of surrealism can be simply defined as a different set of restrictions defined within a system. In light of this, and in light of the emphasis Breton places on the production of surrealist images as his statement of nonconformity, he can be said to resemble a kind of "surrealist pornographer" when he says his role is to "record" these immodestly created surrealist images -- immodest in the sense of Breton's overwhelming ego, and perhaps also in another sense -- immodesty as surrealist pornography, through the explicit, gratituous description or depiction of surrealism "in a manner intended to stimulate or excite"7.
At this point, it may be useful to consider Surrealism in terms of another stimulating8 image as suggested by Matthews in a review of the Surrealist Manifesto fifty years on. Matthews puts forth that the narrow definition of surrealism as outlined in the Manifesto exists like the tip of an iceberg, of which its real value lies in that it marks "above the waterline, the presence of something of far greater proportions, beneath the surface." This description does bear testimony to the immense influence Surrealism has had in the years following the publication of the Surrealist Manifesto, but I think we cannot attribute the mass of the entire iceberg -- and with it, all the credit for Surrealism's greatness today -- to Breton's Manifesto alone. Breton's tendency towards the displacement of focus (from the nature of the surrealist to what the surrealist has to record) may be read as an indication that that the essence of what it meant to be surreal was not to be found in "Surrealism" alone, and what has truly given Surrealism its greatest power is that it serves as a point of reference which can be built upon.
Paradox in Bataille's Pornographic Surrealism
Bataille builds upon Breton in that he begins by actively recognising the crucial dialectic between excess and restraint at play when we try to define Surrealism or even Pornography. For Bataille, two diametrically opposed views are always possible on any subject, and "there exists no prohibition that cannot be transgressed", and that "the transgression is [not only] permitted, often it is even prescribed". Thus, what Bataille means is that in order for restraint to occur there must be the possibility of excess, and vice versa. Through "Pornographic Surrealism" (as I would like to describe Bataille's reworking of Surrealism), this irresolvable paradox between excess and restraint is clearly acknowledged, instead of conveniently disregarded as Breton himself seems to have done in what i would denote as "surrealist pornography" (that simply focuses on the production of the opposition, rather examining the gap between excess and restraint).
Not only does Bataille discuss the paradox between excess and restraint in his other writings, but Bataille also makes use of paradoxical metaphors such as "rainless tempest", "common isolation", as well as trying to relate the literal aspect of the sight of a naked man on a bicycle to its "theorectical unclean[liness]":
"...that day, in the rainless tempest, Simone and I, our clothing lost, were forced to leave the chateau, fleeing like animals through the hostile darkness, our imaginations haunted by the despondency that was bound to take hold of Marcelle again, making the wretched inmate almost an embodiment of the fury and terror that kept driving our bodies to endless debauchery. We soon found our bicycles and could offer one another the irritating and theorectically unclean sight of a naked though shod body on a machine. We pedalled rapidly, without laughing or speaking, peculiarly satisfied with our mutual presences, akin to one another in the common isolation of lewdness, weariness and absurdity..." (Story of the Eye, 31) (emphasis mine)A naked man on a bicycle man does not necessarily have to be interpreted as an "unclean" or obscene sight, but perhaps because of the proximity of the genitals to the point at which the man and machine meet, the theoretical uncleanliness refers to the obscene wordplay of how the man could be said to be be "riding" the machine, with an emphasis on the term "riding" as a euphemism for intercourse. Word plays like this, as well as another incident in which Simone says "Milk is for the pussy" and dips her pussy into a saucer of milk originally meant for the cat, are examples of "pornographic surrealism" evident through the erotic overtones emerging from the surrealistic word play.
The sort of play in Bataille's works, however, also has a more sinister, fatal tone to it than the sort of beautiful surrealist play of words Breton originally proposed; since in Story of the Eye, many these erotic games as depicted in the novel end in madness (eg. Marcelle), death (e.g. Don Aminado), or injury (e.g. the narrator). The recognition of this constant state of paradox of meaning on so many different levels evokes anxiety, reflected in his works through "invocations of something frightful and uncontrollable lurking under everything" (Lubbock), an image that transforms the calmly floating iceberg Matthews described, to the thinly veiled, seething monster that Surrealism has the potential to be as "Pornographic Surrealism" -- like an eye awaiting enucleation, or a corpse awaiting decay.
Real Revolution Demands the Enucleation of the Eye of reason In the Story of the Eye, not only does Bataillle illustrate the enucleation of the eyes of Granero and the priest, but throughout the entire narrative, he also engages in a theoretical enucleation of the eye -- in reference to the eye as the emblematic symbol of Enlightenment reason (Huxley, 73). The Enlightenment was the time when human reason was first heralded as being sufficient in providing us with an understanding of the entire world, and in the western tradition, the eye has always been considered to be the window of the soul, since the faculty of sight is crucial for bringing ideas into our consciousness. The "noble" organ of the eye has thus been excluded from manual labour, instead it is usually left to float sanguinely and sanctimoniously in its orbital cavity.
However, in Acephale, Bataille states that he rejects reason, and having recognizing the eye as the source of reason, he argues that "the head and its tyrannical organ, the eye, have inhibited revolutionary action from below; therefore they must be cut off and gouged out". He then makes the eye work for us by extracting it out of its socket, and revealing its base nature within, in what we may consider to be his style of "pornographic surrealism". In Visions of Excess, he describes eyes as a "cannibal delicacy", emphasizing the edible and material nature of eyeballs as meat that should be consumed as food; in a similar act of transforming the eye into a material object, in Story of the Eye, he has Simone insert the eye as a physical, round, solid globe into her vagina, a surreal act which represents the rejection of rationality by having consumed the eye, and in terms of it being a pornographic act, it can be regarded as erotic play, which already indicates it is borne of the impulse of the desire for sexual pleasure, which is governed by instincts rather than rationality.
"Now I stood up and, while Simone lay on her side, I drew her thighs apart, and found myself facing something I imagine I had been waiting for in the same way that a guillotine waits for a neck to slice. I even felt as if my eyes were bulging from my head, erectile with horror; in Simone's hairy vagina, I saw the wan blue eye of Marcelle, gazing at me through tears of urine. Streaks of come in the steaming hair helped give that dreamy vision a disastrous sadness." (Story of the Eye, 84)By having dealt a blow to the rationalist vision, one is thus able to recover the poetic imagination. However, by having enucleated the eye and revealed its horrific, grotesque baseness, for Bataille there will be no way to speak of the beauty within the notion of poetic imagination without first considering the paradox of the baseness present even in what may seem beautiful to others on first glance. This differs from Breton's original conception of Surrealism, which Breton claims is "especially conducive to the production of the most beautiful images" through the clash or juxtaposition between two outrageously opposing elements. For Breton, what is pleasing to the eye is the beauty found in the paradox, but from Bataille's more materialist viewpoint of "pornographic surrealism", where beauty cannot be simply found in "surrealist pornography", but the mechanism of "beauty" itself must be questioned. For Bataille, the mechanism of sexual arousal is shown to work in how it reveals the contrast between beauty and what we recognise to be the base and ugly nature of coition; the greater the contrast, the greater the arousal it is able to produce -- in the same way an extramarital affair may seem more pleasurable not because it satisfies the fundamental sexual urge, but rather that it is charged with the "erotic frisson of transgression", and paradoxically attempts to to erase the social taboo of adultery while at the same time, emphasising these boundaries more than ever.
At the "breaking point of the consciousness", Bataille also illustrates a "pornographic surrealism" through the substitution of a perfectly obscene image for a vision apparently devoid of any sexual implication, such as the saucer of milk, the white eggs and eyeballs, and the bulls' balls. Another example of this "pornographic surrealism" at work can be found in the scene in the Church:
"Look, he explained to Simone, "the Eucharistic hosts in the ciborium, and here the chalice where they put white wine"The surrealistic juxtaposition of of the symbolic elements within the Christian Eucharist (the wafer and the wine, as symbolic of the body and blood of Christ) with these base elements (spermatozoa and urine, which are laden with obscene and erotic connotations for the other characters), awakens a consciousness of the surreality and apparent irrationality of the struggle for "glory" or religious affirmation from God of one's own piety. In an examination of the relation between surrealism and religion, we can see how Bataille's "pornographic surrealism" helps to lead us towards a theory of excess, as it reveals an irreconcilable breakdown between the behaviour (in this case, "religiousness") and the deed ("religious sacrifice"), when one tries to consider this abstract notion of "glory":
"They smell like come," said Simone, sniffing the unleavened wafers.
"Precisely," continued Sir Edmond. "The hosts, as you see, are nothing other than Christ's sperm in the form of small white biscuits. And as for the wine they put in the chalice, the ecclesiastics say it's the blood of Christ, but they are obviously mistaken. If they really thought it was the blood, they would have used red wine, but since they employ only white wine, they are showing that at the bottom of their hearts they are quite aware that this is urine."
The lucidity of this logic was so convincing that Simone and I required no further explanation. (Story of the Eye, 76) (emphasis mine)
"Glory, the consequence of superiority, is itself something different from an ability to take another's place and seize his possessions: it expresses a movement of senseless frenzy, of measureless expenditure of energy, which the fervour of combat presupposed." (Visions of Excess, 204) (emphasis mine)Since the degree of one's religious piety can be determined by how much one is willing to sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice of one's life is surely one that will bring one glory. However, the "pornographic surrealism" in the scene where Don Aminado strives to become a martyr after having been forced by Simone, Sir Edmond and the narrator to participate in obscene acts (Story of the Eye, 79), makes clear the irrationality of the act, which points toward excess as it is necessary for the religious supplicant to sacrifice or abandon material wealth in order to make these objects sacred or attain martyrdom; sacrifice in itself, does refer to "the production of sacred things." (Eroticism, 170) Similarly, the twisted gold in the ciborium is valued not as a economic wealth of treasure but rather as religious artifact, after it has had its transactionary value removed from it so that it can take on this religious aspect. Sacrifice invests objects and the community as a whole with religious values by negating the fact of its materiality, and thus occurs here is a production of excess that is the same as the excess inherent in pornography, which occurs when one is liberated to pursue one's libidinal impulses.
"But on a sensual level, she so bluntly craved any upheaval that the faintest call from the senses gave her a look directly suggestive of all things linked to deep sexuality, such as blood, suffocation, sudden terror, crime..." (Story of the Eye, 6)Bataille writes that the narrator and Simone did not copulate but only sought to "defy modesty... as immodestly as possible". Any form of their sexual activity was conducted in the pursuit of "voluptuous pleasures" rather than for procreation of the birth of children. Simone rejects the advances of the narrator when he tries to rape her in her bed, telling him she was not interested in sex in what would seem like a marriage bed, "like a housewife and mother" (Story of the Eye, 20). The aspects of eroticism that give it its "richness"9 demands a basic irregularity, unlike the implication of habit in the context of a woman within a household, where the context of a woman's position is within the domestic home and the expectation is for her to raise children and participate in domestic activities, which is why Simone rejected it immediately. For the narrator and Simone, it was extremely clear that sensual pleasure was the central the motivation for erotic play, highlighting once again that sexual desire is by guided by impulse and not by logical explanation."
Bataille notes that we differentiate men from animals by virtue of our use of technology and our ability to work and produce things using labour. This labour, may also be seen to extend to procreation, which we can also see as a form of labour (which simply produces more labour in the form of workers) , and if work is that which distinguishes us from the animals, then work also teaches us that rationality is necessary to bring us to our desired conclusion. Yet paradoxically, the anticipated result of sexual activity is clearly not the production of children, but rather, sexual pleasure. The allure of the pornographic is informed by our desire for sensual pleasure, and if eroticism is to be viewed in perspective of desire, then when sexual pleasure is sought independently of the intention to give birth to a child, it results in a "irrecoverable loss of expenditure", or as we call it, a kind of "little death". Loss is thus inevitable, as represented by the inability of the characters to speak of certain things, or speak at all at certain particularly intense moments during the novel. For example, the hardboiled eggs, are never spoken of after the period of Simone's brief mania with them, and after the priest dies the narrator is unable to rape Simone although that was his original intention for reaching out to her.
Is Death the End, or is it not?
"Nothing about [Marcelle's] death could be measured by a common standard, and the contradictory impulses overtaking us in this circumstance neutralised one another, leaving us blind and as it were, very remote from anything we touched, in a world where gestures have no carrying power, like voices in a space that is absolutely soundless." (Story of the Eye, 52) (emphasis mine)Like the "measureless expenditure of energy" involved in the production of sacredness, what Bataille's "pornographic surrealism" leads us towards is an enucleated (and hence blind) state of irreconcilable loss, and at the point where all "contradictory impulses" "neutralise one another", we approach closer to the restraints that bind us within rationality and materiality. The ultimate barrier of materiality is of course death, and it is significant that the pure and innocent Marcelle originally stood not only as "wretched inmate" to propriety (Story of the Eye, 31) but also the inspiration to Simone and the narrator to "endless debauchery", and finally, stands on the other side of the barrier of death, constantly driving Simone and the narrator towards excess and the desire to breach all restraints.
Having led us to a larger theory of excess and the notion of irrecoverable loss, Bataille's "Pornographic Surrealism" shows us that the constant paradox of oppositions already exists within human consciousness, for it is impossible to avoid dying, yet through death it is our attempt to escape from the terror of dying, and the terror we experience in dying exists even in the space that lies beyond those boundaries. It is this dumbfounding horror of the paradox which Bataille leaves with us, from what he tries to communicate via his text, best expressed in what he says of communication:
"'Communication' cannot proceed from one full and intact individual to another. It requires individuals whose seperate existence in themselves is risked, placed at the limit of death and nothingness; the moral summit is the moment of risk taking, it is a being suspended in the beyond of oneself, at the limit of nothing." ("Christ", The Bataille Reader, 93)
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Footnotes:
- Besides "dissent surrealist", Bataille has also been described as a "renegade surrealist".
- In "Surrealism From Day To Day", (The Absense of Myth, 39) Bataille describes a conversation he had with Louis Aragon (one of the founding members of Surrealism in 1924, along with Breton) in which Aragon had offered to Bataille his own interpretation of the surrealist doctrine at that moment. After a thoughtful pause, Bataille replied: "About all the things you have talked about so eloquently... don't you have the feeling that you are pulling rabbits out of a hat?"
- Sontag, Susan. "The Pornographic Imagination", 111.
- The Oxford English Dictionary writes that the etymology of the word "pornography" comes from the Hellenic adjective that means "that which writes about prostitutes".
- Despite Bataille's frequently scathing criticisms of Breton, it should be noted that his criticisms offer tribute rather than attempt to discredit Breton's Surrealism. In "Age of Revolt" (Absence of Myth) where Bataille argues against Breton's "inexcusable misunderstanding" of Camus's The Rebel, Bataille also said of Breton: "I am his adversary only on the surface... on more than one occasion, following some old difficulties over twenty years ago, I have expressed my agreement with the surrealist position, at least in the sense in which I understand it".
- At no point from 1924 till today (2007) have writers such as Swift, Constant, or Mallarmé (to name a few of those who Breton singled out in his Manifesto) been popularly described as blatantly surrealist.
- The Oxford English Dictionary has defined Pornography as: "the explicit description or exhibition of sexual subjects or activity in literature, painting, films, etc., in a manner intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic feelings; printed or visual material containing this." Or in extended use, "the explicit description or depiction of something in a manner intended to stimulate or excite., eg Pornography of violence".
- Stimulating to the argument. And it is vaguely phallic.
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"Transgression in Marriage and in Orgy". Visions of Excess, 111.
Works Cited
Bataille, Georges. Story of the Eye. Trans. Joachim Neugroschal. London: Penguin Books, 1982.
__________. The Absense of Myth: Writings on Surrealism. Trans. Michael Richardson. New York: Verso, 1994.
__________. Erotism: Death & Sensuality. Trans. Mary Dalwood. San Fransciso: City Light Books, 1986.
__________. The Bataille Reader. Eds. Botting, Fred and Scott Wilson. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.
__________. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939. Ed. Allan Stoekl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
Breton, Andre. "Le Manifeste du Surréalisme." Surrealism. Ed. Patrick Waldberg. New York : Thames & Hudson, 1997. 66-75.
Huxley, Francis. The Eye : The Seer and the Seen. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.
Matthews, J. H. "Fifty Years Later: The Manifesto of Surrealism (in Perspective, Aesthetics, Poetics)." Twentieth Century Literature. 21.1 (1975):1-9.
"Pornography." Oxford English Dictionary. (3 Mar. 2007). Mar 2007.
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50184353?single=1&query_type=word&query word=pornography&first=1&max_to_show=10
Lubbock, Tom. "ARTS: That's unreal." The Independent. (9 May. 2006). 10 Mar 2007.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060509/ai_n16351546.
© Debbie Ding 2009