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Spectacular Spectators: Regendering the Male Gaze in Delariviere Manley's Julie Anderson continued . . .
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At this moment in the play, Homais is clearly a feminine object enticing the male gaze. Although we may be quick to assume that this moment in the text is like those moments of viewing pleasure that Mulvey discusses, Manley does not restrict Homais's role to be merely a feminine object for male spectatorship. Homais is as much an object for gazing as she is a spectator herself. Homais's erotic actions that her slave tells Levan about are a reaction to Homais's gazing upon a picture of Levan. What Levan seems to miss, is that in the objectifying of Homais, he himself as been objectified. The slave continues his mental painting of Homais by commenting on the similarity between Levan's and Homais's reactions to pictures of each other: Thus she bears her when she sees your picture, Which drawn at length, almost as graceful as The original, is the chief ornament Of her apartment, answering Exactly to her waking curtains. (229) Homais's passion is stimulated by her gazing on Levan's portrait, an object that is viewed by a spectator. Although Levan appears to be the male spectator and Homais the female spectacle, they exchange places: at this moment, Levan is the object and Homais is the spectator. In a way, Homais assumes the actions of the male gazer: she looks with a controlling desire on an erotic object. However, I believe that there is more going on in this passage than a simple exchange of gender roles: the gaze has ungendered itself, in a sense. The spectacle becomes a spectator, and the spectator becomes a spectacle. This action in the text is like a refraction because the object bounces the gaze back: spectator and spectacle are not the same. The refractiveness associated with gazing on Homais—that the spectator becomes the object of Homais's gaze—is intensified as the audience realizes that their association with Levan as a spectator can place them in the position of being objects of Homais's gaze, as well. The audience has been invited to participate in gazing at the (mental) image of Homais, and by participating in that act, they have made their position as mere spectators of the play somewhat precarious. When the audience identifies with Levan as spectators of Homais, the audience cannot completely distance themselves from Levan when he becomes the object of Homais's gaze. The audience is entangled in the refractive property of the gaze in this play. When Homais and Levan finally meet face-to-face in Act 3, their greeting is marked by an awareness of gazing. Homais asks, "Where shall I turn my guilty eyes?" and Levan replies, "Permit me take this envious cloud away / That I may gaze on all the wonders there. / Oh, do not close those beauteous eyes . . ." (233). Homais's question and Levan's reply identify both characters as a gazers; they are also the objects of the other's gaze. Homais's eyes are objects of desire even as they desire objects. By situating the origin of desire in the eyes, Manley plays with the image of Homais as spectator and spectacle. Had Homais's eyes not been so powerful, she might have failed in her attempt to seduce Levan. By identifying her eyes as guilty, Homais emphasizes the sexuality of the desire for the object. As Manley plays with the pun of Homais's guilty eyes as objects of desire, Manley turns Homais's gaze outward to the audience. As she does earlier in the play with the pictures of Homais and Levan to refract the audience's gaze back, Manley uses Homais's eyes as an object in the text that looks back at the audience. The guilty eyes of this passage are the same that Homais's husband charges with the tragedy of the play in the closing lines. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next Node | 6 | 7 | 8 | Works Cited
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