The Sadeian Woman - quotes - complete Flashcards
What does carter say about beauty, youth and innocence in women
beauty, youth, and innocence in women give them an artificial ascendancy…she is compensated for her defencelessness by a convention of respect which is largely false’
What does carter say about the mystification of the feminine self
herself mystified by herself, narcissistically enamoured of the idea of herself as Blessed Virgin, she has no notion at all of who she is except in fantasy’
What does Carter say about where Justine’s valuing of herself lies
has never resided in herself but in the values of the open market’
What does carter say about what Justine is the start of
self regarding female masochism, a woman with no place in the world, no status, the core of whose resistance has been eaten away by self pity’
What Edmund ___say the Sadeian woman is for her other books
Gordon - a sort of guide to the other books she wrote during this period
What is Carter’s attitude to Sade overall
he expresses the hypocrisies of a patriarchal society that treats women as property
What do Juliette and Justine represent
Opposing responses to patriarchal oppression
what particular response to the patriarchy does Justine embody
following traditional morality in an effort to attain virtue (but it only leads to suffering)
what response to the patriarchy does Juliette embody
she embraces libertinism and uses her sexuality as a source of power and agency
What is Carter’s response to 1970s radical feminist movements about sexuality
she sees it as dangerous to completely reject sexuality/suppress sexual expression
- as it could paint women as perpetual victims who have no power to define their sexual agency (denies agency)
However she also acknowledges that sexuality is not inherently liberating
Overall the relationship between sexuality and power is nuanced and can be used to subjugate or empower women
what did 1970s radical feminist movements view sexuality/overt sexual expression and pornography as
tools of patriarchal control for the objectification of women
Give a quote supporting the idea that the dominatrix character in pornography is not a powerful female figure
the dominatrix is actually a ‘manifestation of the victim’s guilt before the fact of his own sexuality’
what is the association with teh setting of the forest in Justine
‘the place of rape’
what is the association with the fortress in Justine
‘the place of confinement and pain’
give a quote about Justine and virtue and suffering
there is ‘no mysterious virtue in Justine’s suffering’
what is the essence of Justine’s virtue
‘doing what she is told’
what makes Justine important to herself
‘her denial of her own sexuality, it what makes her important to herself’
Justine offers herself up as an object of ____expecting ___and is instead inevitably ___
pity, respect, desecrated
the dual standards of feminist y are perfectly balanced in what girl
pre-pubescent (on the cinema screen - you could analyse the cinematic nature of some of Carter’s work and see this as similar to the pulp-fiction cinematic nature of Dracula)
why can beauty and sexuality not be reconciled in women
while that beauty relies upon a conception of beauty in innocence, they cannot be married
why is the ‘pre-sexual waif’ a sexual icon
she is ‘tacitly assumed to be sexually inactive’ so her sexy beauty cannot ruin her attractiveness)
Give a quote about passivity being death-like
to be the object of desire is to be defined in the passive case. To exist in the passive case is to die in the passive case - that is, to be killed. This is the moral of the fairy tale about the perfect woman.’
Give a quote about how niether Justine nor Juliette succeed in overcoming the patriarchy
b. Justine is a ‘pawn’, Juliette is the ‘queen’, but the king is still ‘the lord of the game’
Give a quote showing Sade’s works are like fairy tales
a. Sade sees psychology as fixed, with vice and virtue as innate. ‘this straightjacket psychology relates his fiction directly to the black and white ethical world of fairy tale and fable’
