Políticas, Normas, Leyes y Reglamentos

The exploration of the Panopticon as a component of Foucault’s analysis of ‘Discipline’ has highlighted the element of dualism in the role(s) of the disciplined subjects. In relation to other students, the dancer at the Opera School functions as “transmitter- receiver” of the disciplinary gaze. On an individual level, (self-)discipline enables the submissive reception as well as the independent, voluntary application of the rules of the institution. The governing system in the establishment, similar to an autarky, is based on the autonomous application-diffusion of power by its members, which in turn symbolically eradicates the need for a teacher/discipliner. In light of the analysis of the double role of the subject in the disciplinary institution, this next section demonstrates that this double role of the main character (almost a split personality) provides the (brainwashed) self-disciplined dancer with an over-powering mind intentionally forgetful of the body. The monstrous metamorphosis occurs when the anorexic subject (mistakenly) thinks she can forget her body (and her bodily pains). However, the physical state brought about by her anorexia (and signified by the monstrous) is not sustainable and the subject is eventually brought back down to earth (her attempt at ‘envol’ fails), and to bodily realities (her fall “confronts” the dancer with her broken/diseased body).

In the novel, Plectrude displays this double role: she becomes first a docile body who “receives” discipline and she complies to corporeal standards (which are imposed and monitored by the professors); gradually she becomes self-disciplined and she herself imposes on her own body the standards of the institution. Indeed, Plectrude’s unceasing surveillance of her body rapidly transforms into an obsession with the body; she goes even further than the rules of the school and imposes intransigent standards upon herself. The example of her total elimination of calcium intake (146) – this

‘autodestruction de l’intérieur’185 – will unveil that she has also gone past the limits of the resistance of her body. Despite her full acceptance of the school rules, the young dancer retains ‘à l’intérieur de sa tête, la voix de l’enfance’ which whispers words of revolt (129). The teachers are compared to rats ‘avec de grandes dents pour ronger la viande sur le corps des ballerines’ (129). This childish metaphor may be understood as a part of her self/body refusing the physical torture of the school, and as a warning against the dangerous self-inflicted dietary restrictions (the disturbing metaphor of the teachers gnawing the meat off their bodies is a visual “staged” representation / mise en scène of her own bodily diminishing). These words of revolt to resist the rules could also be the forerunner to other forms of conflict, linked with anorexia. With ‘Ici, on exige de nous ce qui est surhumain’ (130) we understand that Plectrude will have to transcend her body and override the limits of the human physique if she is to achieve her (impossible) goal. Essentially Plectrude is on her own; she affronts the gulf with family and friends (she is referred to as ‘une étrangère [qui] … ne faisait plus partie de leur groupe’ (147)), as well as her teachers (131): ‘En son for intérieur, la petite, qui avait appris à danser contre ses professeurs, apprit aussi à vivre contre sa famille’ (141). This alienation and the consequential solitude are the first triggers to the motif of oubli de soi, which also announces the forthcoming process of internal separation.

These various privations of (read, separations from) food, family comfort, teacher support and body resources economy nonetheless vouch for the success of her aim. As Foucault explains, the system of ‘gratification-sanction’ justifies the presence of hardships and punishment.186 Even if the difficult customs of the School differ somewhat from punishment (‘sanction’), they can nonetheless be seen as the required hardships in view of the ‘gratification’ to come. The ultimate ‘gratification’ granted to the students is simply to allow them to dance: ‘La récompense arriva: on dansa’ (126). As the teachers of the School explain, dance is not a means but a reward:

185 _{Dusaillant-Fernandes, ‘Écriture du corps’, p. 7.} 186 _{Foucault, Surveiller et punir, p. 212.}

Danser, cela se mérite. Danser, danser sur une scène devant un public, est le plus grand bonheur du monde. A vrai dire, même sans public, même sans scène, danser est l’ivresse absolue. Une joie si profonde justifie les sacrifices les plus cruels. [...] Huit heures à la barre par jour et un régime de famine, cela ne paraîtra dur qu’à celles qui n’ont pas assez envie de danser. (125-26)

The differentiation between dance as a means and dance as a ‘récompense’ justifies the physical hardships and other various privations, and puts the activity on a superior level. The discovery and “understanding” of the true nature of dance (a religion, 127) almost transforms the dancers as the chosen few, God’s elects, with the “holy task” of

achieving the right to dance. From this moment on in the story Plectrude’s perception of bodily hardships changes: she views them as the necessary steps towards the

achievement of her goal. In a nutshell, Plectrude has come to reject anything obstructing her path and preventing her to concentrate on her quest; she alienates her family and friends, “fattening” foodstuffs, hunger, metamorphoses and body pains.

The obsession with the reward is synonymous with an obsession with the body. Plectrude sets out to seize control of her body and learns about a common practice in the school amongst dancers : ‘avaler des pilules interdites qui bloquaient certaines mutations de l’adolescence’ (127). In her first novel Hygiène de l’assassin Nothomb’s portrayal of the attempt by two young characters to control (interrupt) the

metamorphoses of puberty ends with the murder of the female adolescent (by her male cousin) as she menstruates for the first time. Indeed both this murder and the anti- puberty pills at the Opera School seek to interrupt the menstruating cycle and the hormonal and physical changes of adolescence. They both represent a disruption of the life cycle, and an attempt to control physical and psychological human development. Moreover, the pills point to a denial of the human who cannot exist in the disciplinary institution. Indeed no human body (child or adult) can conform fully to the standards required by the dance school and only monstrous shapes can emerge from this environment.

Weight loss is another means to control the body and at the School, it is never sensed as a bad thing: ‘On n’était jamais trop squelettique’ (121). As Plectrude celebrates weight loss (131-2), we understand that she becomes psychologically manipulated: not only her body but also her mind are empowered by the necessities to reach her aim. Plectrude does not seem to have full control over her food deprivations. Despite the intense pains in her legs she bears the suffering which she knows is due to

the absence of calcium in her diet (145). The visual description of atrocious physical pains – ‘un supplice digne d’une séance de torture’ (146) – results in the reader (and the character) focusing entirely on the body and its remaining strength. She knows her calcium deficiency is the cause of her pains,

Pourtant, elle ne put se décider à reprendre de ce maudit yaourt. Sans le savoir, elle était victime de la machine intérieure de l’anorexie, qui considère chaque privation comme irreversible, sauf à ressentir une culpabilité insoutenable. (146)

However, Plectrude does not stop there: ‘Elle perdit encore deux kilos, ce qui la confirma dans l’idée que le yaourt maigre était “lourd”’ (147). Later, we read: ‘Son poids: trente-deux kilos. Il lui semblait parfois qu’elle n’avait jamais eu de vie avant’ (148). The young girl’s obsession with the control of her body has actually dragged her in a vicious circle; in an attempt to monitor her diet she has become a slave to it, unable to stop losing weight. The examination of her tense relationship with food and her own body image permits us to speculate on a merging between the body and the self. As she loses another two kilos and sinks deeper into the torments of anorexia, Plectrude feels that she is truly alive for the first time ever. She is born when her body is in its most fragile state and when everything depends on its resistance (133). In a chapter entitled ‘Interpreting Anorexia Nervosa’, Noelle Caskey examines the pathology:

It is the literal mindedness of anorexia to take “the body” as a synonym for “the self”, and to try to live in the world through a manipulation of “the body”, particularly as it is reflected to the anorexic by the perceived wishes of others. […] Will alone produces it and maintains it against considerable physical odds.187

The forerunners of Plectrude’s collapse are manifold; nonetheless she decides to ignore them and attempts to remain stronger than the body/pains: she imposes upon herself ‘des amnésies volontaires’ (144). Plectrude, following the dance school’s rhetoric, assumes a mind/body separation that she is unable to sustain. The already unstable relationship between the subject, the body and the mind is all the more disturbed by Nothomb as Plectrude “becomes” her body and its pains. Her excessive dietary and physical hygiene entrap her in a confusing relationship between body and self, of which she becomes the prisoner. Dedication for dance and the endorsement of the rules of the School manipulate her body and eventually manipulate her. As Caskey explains, the

187 _{Noelle Caskey, ‘Interpreting Anorexia Nervosa’, in The Female Body in Western Culture:}

Contemporary Perspectives, ed. by Susan Rubin Suleiman (Cambridge, Massachusetts and

heroine is at the start dependent on the standards of the institution and its requirements regarding her physique (the body ‘as it is reflected to the anorexic by the perceived wishes of others’). Consequently, it leads the young dancer to a frenzy of control of her body, which gradually turns into oblivion of the body; eventually the main character becomes unable to sustain the illusion of the mind/body division. This duality is a struggle of domination; the self mastering the body and the body resisting it. As I will show in Part Four of this chapter, the monstrous is an embodiment of this struggle: the problematic notion of mind-body separation/merging points to the fragility of the subject and of her (internal) boundaries which, eventually, the monstrous encapsulates.