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KATE MILLETT
in an emotional complicity with the ruling order, they invent insults
("Servants ooze"; "They are not of the human race" ) exposing the
poisonous effect their declared inferiority, agreed upon by others and
agreed to by themselves, has had upon them. So much do they
be–
lieve in their superiors' edition of their lives, they cannot escape
servitude save in self-laceration, and their revolt is only the criminal's
folly which inevitably rebounds back upon itself. But here, in contrast
to the novels, it is presented for the first time with explicitness de–
void of romantic sentimentality. The maids' suffering is exquisite, but
their oppression has been too effective; out of their predicament as
selves defined by others, there is as yet no exit.
The Balcony,
which concentrates on the political connotations
of sex role as power, is another case of failed rebellion, but a great
advance over the maids' claustral dilemma in that an actual revolu–
tion might have taken place
if
it had any alternate values to set up
in place of the
ancien regime
it has temporarily destroyed. Armand
names the problem: "I personally don't believe in their masquerade,
not one bit. But is there any stronger force to replace them?" A
his–
tory of belief and cooperation paralyzes one. In Carmen, the prostitute,
participation in masculine phantasy .has created such identification
with the role that it becomes her reality; excused from the charade,
she craves those heady moments when she was The Immaculate
Conception of Lourdes to a bank clerk. In the same way, the par–
ticipation of a whole populace in the ancient myths of the church, the
law and the army, bring about instantaneous capitulation when
im–
posters standing in for these members of the "Nomenclature" are
paraded through the city
if!
state. Humanity is a bit like a baby, or
the masochist in studio four who wishes only to be tied and spanked,
so schooled in the old rites it loves them.
In stipulating that the roles in
The Maids
be
played by young
men, Genet was not indulging in a gay joke, but only, as Sartre ob–
serves, presenting "femininity without women," an abstraction, a
state of mind. Since "nigger," like "cunt," is a status word to him,
Genet employed a similar device with regard to black and white in
The Blacks,
where he chose to have black actors ("behind the mask
of a cornered white
is
a poor trembling Negro" ) represent the White
Court who judge the ritual murder of whiteness as performed by
another group of blacks, the Players. Since their situation in white
