"THE PLOT'S GOT ME HOOKED": METADIEGETIC NARRATIVE AND FEMALE BODY AS INTERCHANGEABLE OBJECTS OF (MALE) DESIRE

Abstract

The paper addresses the fusion of sexual and textual desire as one of the salient characteristics of Western culture in Francine Prose's academic novel Blue Angel (2000) and Theresa Rebeck's play The Butterfly Collection (2002). Relying upon a variety of techniques, both texts present the protagonists' desire as oscillating between female bodies and female texts in an attempt to come to grips with what male characters regard as their own creative "impotence". Women, therefore, are treated as blank screens for projecting male desires and complexes. In highly satirical Blue Angel this ambivalent take on desire serves the purpose of criticizing both the Puritan intolerance practiced by the politically correct America of the 21st century, and the obscure "theorese" as the language employed in contemporary literary studies. The Collection of Butterflies, a much more lyrical and meditative piece of writing, juxtaposes human yearnings as Erotic versus Thanatic drives ever present in our life-worlds. Both writers imbue their works with feminist overtones.