Scorched Earth Identity: Queer Self-Actualization and Invisibility in Alexis and Claudine at School

As spaces of artistic dissent appropriated by rich, straight white men are reclaimed by queer communities, the intentionality of queer identities surges to the surface. We have had to, by necessity for survival, create our own communities and own definitions of self, having not found those in our social environment. This purposefulness points to a question present from the roots of queer literature to the modern day: are queer identities a natural state or are they invented? Like most questions, this one does not have a black and white answer. Queer people are born into our brains and our beings and our identities fully formed, but there comes a breaking point where we must compare this sense of self to our socially programmed self and, through self-awareness, unlearn and the rebuild ourselves from the ground up in order to remain authentic to our true identities. This is what early 20th century French novelist Marguerite Yourcenar’s Alexis does. The speaker of the novel believes his homosexuality to be natural to him, but unnatural to expectations of himself: so, destroys that version of himself so that he can create himself in his natural image, which is expounded in the pages of the book. In another early and seminal work mobilizing queer narratives, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette’s Claudine at School, the opposite is undertaken. Claudine demonstrates a perhaps progressive, perhaps unrealistic lack of awareness of her queerness in relation to society. By following the Sapphic sphere of exploring sexuality in youth and then ‘graduating’ from them with school, she demonstrates a devotion to battling invisibility but not at the price of self-awareness needed for self-actualization against social expectation. In other words, she will rebel with anything excluding her very identity and existence, which she is not willing to render vulnerable. In a way, Alexis applies an absurdist philosophy to his queerness, recognizing and accepting that his existence in and of itself can be a rebellion and in that self-awareness and self-creation have as much or more meaning than those around him. Colette and Yourcenar’s seminal works both demonstrate contrasting grapples with feelings of invisibility and otherness, and demonstrate by example (Yoursenar) and counter-example (Colette) that self-aware destruction and re-construction of the self are critical to the creation of self-affirmed queer identities.

While at first glance, Colette’s speaker’s use of the first person seems to cement her identity and individuality, by creating a dichotomy of ‘self’ versus ‘other,’ Yourcenar’s use of the second person actually creates a more defined identity for Alexis. In Claudine at School, Claudine’s use of first person almost becomes ironic when it becomes clear that it is unbacked by self-criticism; while externally critical, it is internally addressed, more an agglomeration of diary entries than a creation of character or self. In fact, her entries seem an act of catharsis by disassociation and alienation from the world around her rather than an exercise in affirmation of identity. She is incredibly critical of those around her with a flippant tone from early in the book. For instance, on delightedly hearing a conversation between several men with her friend, she states, “I nearly burst out laughing. Rabastens as Don Juan! I had a vision of him with his round head and plump cheek adorned with a blue hat…. Up there, straining towards the road, the two of us laughed at each other with our eyes, without moving a muscle of our faces.”[1] The text is observational, but with a heavy implied judgement of the people around her and their socially conditioned rules (personified in this case by a comical characterization of the boring Rabastens) without actually interacting with them and engaging with them. By contrast, Yourcenar’s Alexis is very internally critical while writing for an external audience. Whereas Colette’s book refuses to acknowledge gender roles, sexual orientation expectations, and the breaking of those, Alexis is written with a deep understanding and engagements with such roles and deep self-critical ponderings on why they must be broken. Even in its almost first-person past-tense-appearing sections, Alexis always maintains an implied presence of his audience: his wife of three years, Monique. In moments, he dedicates extensive descriptions to the complexity of his wife: “No one had told me how kind you were; the princess either was unaware of it or else kindness was for her a superfluous attribute: she thought charm was enough.”[2] This small detail in the recollection of Monique’s history demonstrates an extreme sensitivity of the speaker to his wife, perhaps explaining the deep shrouding of his words in ambiguity. In the case of Alexis, speaker, audience, and society at large are acknowledged and discussed with almost reverential attention. That said, much of his actual self-criticism and analysis of society is shrouded in ambiguity: never does he use the word “homosexual” to describe himself, although he heavily implies it in descriptions of intimacy. With regard to society, Alexis acknowledges his own interactions with it: “Before I knew you, I dreamed of marriage. Perhaps those whose existence is irreproachable dream about something else; in this way we compensate for having but one nature and for living on only one side of happiness.”[3] In this statement, Alexis gestures with incredible sensitivity to the invisibility of members of the queer community leading them to engage in social structures with a dramatically increased self-awareness. Whereas Claudine fails to acknowledge the world around her except how it is perceived by her, Alexis acknowledges as many perspectives as there are people, all with unique sensitivities, and all with unique engagements with social expectations. These social expectations are harped upon and dichotomized from the self to an extent that could be harsh and self-alienating. But, by the acknowledgement of the existence of ‘things as they are’ (marriage, etc.) and ‘perspectives that be’ (Alexis, Monique), Alexis generates a very defined sense of self as separate from the world in a complex manner, while Claudine merely separates herself from the world by acknowledging her own perspective and draping it over the world; in a way, a unification of self with the universe, rather than a distinction and a god-like claim to self-determination. While Alexis writes for the world having found himself, Claudine writes for herself resting on the assumption that she is already actualized.

Since this assumption presupposes the book, Claudine demonstrates low self-awareness as a coping mechanism, fighting her feelings of invisibility with surface-level rebellions against power that don’t touch her internally; conversely, Alexis’s actions correspond with a deep emotional vulnerability that allow him to deconstruct his socially programmed self. Claudine is not at fault for her lack of development; it arises out of the deeply engrained power dynamics within the school system, and the feeling of temporality intrinsic in any relationships and meaning found in individual moments while at school. The book’s framework of Claudine in relation to school is very similar to Sappho’s circle of girls who would cycle through her school, acting as lovers before reaching adulthood and graduating to their supposed true callings heterosexual wives. Thus, the idea of school and relationships being temporary seems to undermine Claudine, making her feel so invisible that her small rebellions make complete sense as a way of reclaiming some level of autonomy. This temporary state elicits Claudine’s most emotional reactions, such as at the betrayal of Aimée, when she writes, “I was burning with fever and my nerves were becoming more and more frayed at feeling that Aimée’s were not vibrating in sympathy. She stroked my head as it lay on her lap and only interrupted now and then with a quavering ‘my little Claudine!’”[4] Here, Claudine demonstrates a physical sensitivity to emotion that mirrors the emotional sensitivity Alexis lends to Monique. However, the role of betrayal is reversed – rather than a moment of deep sadness mingled with need for change, it is a moment of confusion and sadness, one that she feels is not truly reciprocated. Aimée’s apparent lack of genuine sympathy for the situation seem to correspond with an almost play-acting air that the whole relationship has, and suggests that it was premised to begin with on the assumption that it must eventually end. Given the superficiality of this reality, Claudine turns to tricks, irony, and depreciation of those around her to cope with feeling unseen—by Aimée but more deeply by herself. In the days following Aimée’s dismissal, she is first saddened, but quickly resorts to play as distraction and next steps: “Today, at recreation, I played madly to shake myself up and get warm.”[5] She moves so quickly that she does not take time to self-reflect and process her emotions toward Aimée, though her guttural reaction seems authentic save for its short duration. Considering that, the quick timeframe of recovery seems something contrived to protect herself from looking within and experiencing real emotion. Alexis, by contrast, finds comfort in the internal meanderings. After an intimate moment with a man, he says, “Sometimes I said to myself that it had happened, that nothing could have prevented its having happened, and that I could only resign myself to it. Such a thought was like that of damnation: it calmed me. There is a certain release at the bottom of all great helplessness.”[6] Claudine does not let go of herself enough to experience true helplessness. At the core of her experience, she is unwilling or afraid to break herself down enough to experience the release of helplessness. Instead of trying to adjust the simple framework upon which her experiences are built, she resorts to complex reactions to complex issues, whereas Alexis allows himself to feel helpless, broken, what have you that bring him to a place of blankness upon which he can rebuild himself in an authentic manner.

Alexis is driven to destroying and re-building his queer identity that is intrinsically viewed as dissentious out of fear, and Claudine is likewise driven by fear into the system she appears to rebel against. Late in Yourcenar’s novel, Alexis denotes the impossibility of continuing to live a lie in his current state, saying, “I much prefer sin (if that is what it is) to a denial of self which leads to self-destruction.”[7] Alexis regards this letter, this rebuilding of the self as a matter of life and death; a choice was given to him to start over and build himself from ground zero or to allow himself to die (physically or psychologically is left unclear). He asserts a particular kind of autonomy that attempts not pure rebellion, but merely hints at a different sociological lens for morality: “Not having known how to live according to common morality, I endeavor at least to be in harmony with my own: it is precisely when one rejects all principles that one must arm oneself with scruples.”[8] In this way, Alexis maintains broader social frameworks by preserving a moral field but applies them in a different way, suggesting that rather than god, government, etc. that imposes morals upon us, he has become the creator of not only himself, but the environment that defines his actions as right and wrong. In this way, it is fear of destruction that allows him to purposely destroy his life in order to rebuild it according to his own principles. Claudine makes several strikes at rebellion and the sort of absurdist rejection of certain social frameworks, giving her an illusory sense of control. However, she never goes so far as to question her own definition of self, and so does not really change her position, positively or negatively, within social frameworks. For instance, at the end of the book, when Luce and Claudine are left laughing at the disgrace of Sergent by her mother, the audience is left with a continued externalized projection of internal feelings of betrayal and invisibility. When Aimée abandons her, she feels betrayed even within the temporary framework she realizes school to be, but fear prevents this from driving her to question herself. Rather, she questions those around her, and arrives at a position that practically is not dissentious in a way that alters her own perception of self or her surroundings. Concluding the book, she says, “Farewell to the classroom; farewell Mademoiselle and her girl friend; farewell, feline little Luce and spiteful Anaïs! I am going to leave you to make my entry into the world;– I shall be very much astonished if I enjoy myself there as much as I have at school.”[9] As opposed to Alexis, whose final words, “…forgive me, not for leaving you, but having stayed so long.”[10] indicate a stronger belief of his place in the system that he has created from scratch, Claudine’s words allow her world to build her rather than her building her own world. There is a spirit of rebellion there, something that might blossom into greater self-awareness. But her questions and jokes poke at the system and fail to dive into her own self-awareness. By questioning himself first, and allowing himself to be the barometer of his own existence and rules but not those of others, Alexis is able to build something uniquely his to replace a system, which fights the root of his misalignments with social expectations instead of battling the symptoms. Each in their own way, Alexis and Claudine find ways to survive. Claudine clings to small rebellions to fight the growing feeling of invisibility she feels as she fails to look within and process the emotions caused by Aimée’s betrayal and her own desires. While idealistic, the mindset of disregard Claudine expresses can be a very damaging force to queer bodies as it forces them to deal with the otherness they feel through often unhealthy coping mechanisms that still function within heterosexual worldviews in order to avoid a frightening level of introspection. On the other end, Alexis’s deep rationalizations, while useful in the emphasis on self-awareness and unlearning/rebuilding, create a dichotomous worldview that is intrinsically in conflict with the spirit of queer identity as malleable. In a way, Alexis bases the whole framework of his self-awareness that leads to his self-actualization on a cis-het-normative assumption of binaries. It just engages more deeply with self than Claudine’s rebellions. Claudine tackles symptoms of pain and invisibility through external projection and judgement, while Alexis tackles the core issue by creating a new framework of existence for himself, but both still lean on heteronormative foundations.

Fear and trauma direct much of Claudine and Alexis’s survival mechanisms, but the depth of Alexis’s self-reflection as opposed to Claudine demonstrates the core necessity of socially defined identity destruction in order to replace it with the natural/authentic queer identity. While Alexis’s work is for the self and others, Claudine is for herself – at this point in her life she is less fully formed and has not experienced so close to utter destruction to warrant that type of exhausting unlearning and reconstruction so distinctive and powerful within queer communities. Both seem desperate for community. Claudine finds solace, however superficial, in her school friends and brief romance with Aimée. Alexis has not necessarily discovered his new community yet, but the implication at the end of the book is that he will the proceed to seek it out. Many queer communities are created in order to survive, a necessity for some sort of support when it is lacking in one’s country, family, or even friends. Claudine experiences many interactions but doesn’t seem to fully give herself to them – because she does not yet have a critically defined sense of self to lend. Alexis has allowed complete vulnerability, attempting to explain the necessity for his decision. This base vulnerability is present in present-day queer communities, and is what lends them the self-aware power to have more empathy for other minority groups and social issues than many people whose privilege has precluded them from the need to build community. Like Claudine, many people trip over life, rebelling against it while holding up its systems, and like Alexis, some rebuild their own worlds with the same frameworks but a more autonomous power source. Still others find the freedom to not only reassign roles of power in heteronormative systems, but create new systems of identity and interaction altogether.

Bibliography

Colette, Sidonie-Gabrielle. Claudine at School. Internet Archive. 1900. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://archive.org/details/ClaudineAtSchool.

Yourcenar, Marguerite. Alexis. Internet Archive. New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1929. https://archive.org/details/alexis00marg/page/104/mode/2up.

 Footnotes

[1] Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Claudine at School, Internet Archive, 1929, accessed March 27, 2022, https://archive.org/details/ClaudineAtSchool, 39.

[2] Marguerite Yourcenar, Alexis, Internet Archive (New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1929), https://archive.org/details/alexis00marg/page/104/mode/2up, 74.

[3] Ibid., 80.

[4] Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Claudine at School, Internet Archive, 1929, accessed March 27, 2022, https://archive.org/details/ClaudineAtSchool, 51.

[5] Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Claudine at School, Internet Archive, 1929, accessed March 27, 2022, https://archive.org/details/ClaudineAtSchool, 39.

[6] Marguerite Yourcenar, Alexis, Internet Archive (New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1929), https://archive.org/details/alexis00marg/page/104/mode/2up, 40.

[7] Marguerite Yourcenar, Alexis, Internet Archive (New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1929), https://archive.org/details/alexis00marg/page/104/mode/2up, 104.

[8] Ibid., 105.

[9] Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Claudine at School, Internet Archive, 1929, accessed March 27, 2022, https://archive.org/details/ClaudineAtSchool, 286.

[10] Marguerite Yourcenar, Alexis, Internet Archive (New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1929), https://archive.org/details/alexis00marg/page/104/mode/2up, 105.