George Baitaille’s novel My Mother is a recollection of rituals marking a transgression that aims to transcend society. Delineated by the movement of surrealism, this transgression is embodied and carried on by the characters of the story who float between domains, between the evil and good. These domains have multiple functions, but they all rely on the erotic experience of the individual. According to Bataille “knowledge of eroticism or of religion demands an equal and contradictory personal experience of prohibitions and transgressions” (Bataille, pg. 36). This transcending experience Bataille points out is reflected in the novel with the figures of Rhea and Pierre’s mother; the latter being the subject of this paper.
Pierre’s mother is the epiphany of both domains discussed early. When first introduced in the story she appears to be the victim of an abusive alcoholic husband. Her passivity and silence condemn her to the celestial and traditional figure of an obedient Christian follower. In the narrator’s eyes Pierre’s mother is like all women are supposed to be “she was what only male vanity could prevent a person from being, attached to religion” (Bataille, 1995, pg. 27-28). However, soon in the novel, the reader discovers a more accurate portrayal of the mother that eventually will result in her dominant persona. “Up until then I had never noticed that she drank. I was soon to realize the she drank every day, in the same way” (Bataille, 1995, pg. 29). What needs to be pointed out at this moment is that Pierre’s mother’s drinking problem is associated with her husband abusive behavior and it’s not until she asserts her “corrupted” altered ego that we are made aware of her duality. “Your father is dead now and I am tired of falsehoods: I am worse than he” (Battaile, 1995, pg. 32). By slowly introducing the opposite domain, being the transgressive one, the reader has time to step back and analyze how evilness and transgression is embodied in the story.
Pierre’s mother is figuratively the impersonification of an angel of death, who liberated from the chains of taboo, (the authoritative figure of the husband) is now freed to practice her deeds. Her specific function is to guide her son into the world of transgression. “I shall live in the expectation of that other world where I will be in ecstasies of pleasure. I belong body and soul to that other world and so do you. I have absolutely no interest in this world where they scratch about, patiently waiting for death to enlighten them” (Battaille, 1995, pg. 93). For Pierre’s mother, pleasure drives life. In the same way Pierre was conceived, by overcoming taboo and falling one own pleasure and desire, so Pierre’s mother feels the necessity to inculcate her transgression into what/whom was created out of the same transgressive act – Pierre. What other explanations are there to justify the compulsive desire to lead Pierre into the realm of damnation if not the obvious fact that he (Pierre) is the fruit of the “other” domain?
Pierre’s mother’s actions can only be justified if her figure is seen as a ritual a man must undergo to discover his/her own I. This ritual can only assume a meaning within a specific context being that “no ritual could go beyond the immediate context of its performance” (Bataille, 1994, pg. 14). To this matter it is important to mention the human conceptual mentioned by Bataille where the state of conception of continuity leads to a state of discontinuity. In the novel, the passion act of making love, between Pierre’s mother and father, lays the foundation for a discontinuity (Pierre) that needs to be adjusted. To reestablish continuity Pierre must be provided resources to undergone rituals. “It is necessary first of all to re-create the notion of ritual in a society within which the value it represented has been destroyed by the ideology of Christianity” (Bataille, 1994, pg. 14). By doing so a vicious cycle is created where transgression prevails over taboo. Still the question remains whether these rituals symbolize a criticism against the church institution and further capitalism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bataille, G. (1995). My Mother. London, New York: Marion Boyars.
Bataille, G. (1994). The absence of myth.
Intellectual Salon's Food Blog 