Brittany Weir

Queer Francophone Literature

December 8, 2014
Taking Back Choice:
A Literary Analysis of Orlanda
The novel Orlanda is a fantastical tale of one soul splitting into
two distinct and separately autonomous beings. Or is it the mad
ravings of a schizophrenic on a psychiatrists couch? Perhaps it is a
little bit of both. After all, the author, Jacqueline Harpman, was both a
novelist someone who deals with fantasy and the imagination and a
psychoanalyst someone who deals with the mind and its foibles. After
exploring and researching some of the themes of psychoanalysis,
existentialism and feminism in the text and subtext of the novel, I have
arrived at an interpretation of Orlanda as not simply a story, but rather
a form of literary psychoanalytic therapy. The narrator is not an
observer, but rather the creator, or the engineer, using the characters
of Aline and Orlanda to dramatize psychological issues. Specifically,
the novel analyzes the way in which one woman, over the course of
her life, loses her subjectivity and power of choice, and how she might
regain it. In order to defend my interpretation, I plan to demonstrate
the parallels between this novel and popular methods of
psychotherapy, and also to analyze the way the novels elements of
character, plot, and symbolism represent the subject/object dichotomy
and the concept of choice.

Psychoanalytic therapy describes a series of techniques and

methods for studying the human mind and helping people work
through anxieties, insecurities and pathologies. One of the first and
certainly most famous figures in the field of psychoanalysis was Freud,
whose research popularized the idea that many of the psychological
issues adults face can be traced back to events in our childhoods.
These events inform our unconscious mind, which affects our
emotions, which affect our conscious mind and occasionally our
physical health. While much of Freuds work has been modified, the six
basic tenets of psychoanalysis remain relevant to its modern
application in therapeutic form:
1. Neuroses are either genetic or formed during childhood.
2. Our attitudes and thought processes are largely influenced by
irrational drives.
3. These irrational drives occur in the unconscious mind.
4. The mind creates defensive barriers that make it difficult to see
and understand these irrational drives.
5. Dissidence between the unconscious and conscious mind is what
creates psychological disorders, and finally

6. Reconciling the conscious and unconscious mind through

therapeutic intervention frees a person from the effects of these
disorders. (2)
Each of these tenets can be found embedded in Orlanda, both in the
external struggle between Aline and Orlanda and other characters, and
also in Aline and Orlandas individual internal struggles. Aline/Orlandas
childhood is referenced frequently, and very obviously discusses the
struggle between Aline and her mother (a very Freudian plot,) who
increasingly discourages Alines tomboyish and otherwise unladylike
tendencies as Aline grows up. At several points, Aline/Orlanda
becomes restless and nostalgic recalling her personality as a child, and
expressing regret and things that did or did not happen during that
time period. The being Orlanda personifies and embodies the
concept of irrational drives and unconscious, or subconscious thought.
Orlanda says, I have always troubled you, and you cover me up as
best you can, with your lipstick, long hair and silk skirts (3, p. 12)
However, the part of her that is Orlanda is not the problem itself,
because Aline is just as troubled and depressed after Orlanda leaves as
she was before. She has become so used to feeling empty that she
thought it a natural statethat was why Aline did not really feel
anything when Orlanda left her. (3, p. 28) Of course, when Orlanda
becomes his own person, he is not unaffected by the absence of Aline.
They exist apart for a short period of time, in which Aline is unaware

Orlanda exists, and Orlanda makes some effort to leave Aline behind.
But Orlanda cannot stay away forever. He barges into Alines life, and
suddenly conscious thought and unconscious thought are literally
meeting face to face. Alines defenses are not instantly broken of
course she takes awhile to believe Orlandas story, and she is
disturbed by him in some ways, such as when he very openly and
crudely discusses topics like sex. However, as they begin to interact
more and more, they realize that they cannot exist apart for long
periods of time. Orlanda especially feels increasing discomfort when
they are apart, and Aline slowly realizes that this situation must come
to end and the two halves must be reunited, fulfilling the six tenet of
psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalytic therapy is performed using a variety of
techniques. Of course the most famous method is a one-on-one
session with a therapist, with the client reclining a sofa and detailing
various childhood traumas. However many therapists prefer more
active approaches, such as psychodrama, where a person explores
their mental and emotional conflicts by physically acting out situations
on a stage of some kind. (4) During these sessions, the participant is
known as the protagonist, and the therapist will instruct them to
perform various scenes either directly from their life, such as events
that happen in their childhood, or scenes that the protagonists imagine
themselves. Sometimes other people will act as stand-ins for other

people in the protagonists life, and sometimes therapists will instruct

others to personify the protagonists unconscious thoughts. This
technique is called doubling. (4) In the novel, Orlanda acts as Alines
double. This leads me to consider the unnamed omniscient narrator of
the book as Alines therapist; she does not direct the action, but she
comments and gives insight at various points.
So if Orlanda is actually an extended metaphor for a therapy
session, what is it that Aline discovers about herself through Orlanda
that cures her? What lies at the root of Alines inner conflict that is
making her feel so empty and depressed at the beginning of the
novels timeline that is resolved? The obvious answer would seem to
be that Aline desires to be a man. Orlanda certainly seems to enjoy his
physique more than Alines body, and at the novels conclusion when
Aline has killed Lucien in order to force Orlanda to come back she
mourns the loss. However, I do not believe this is the case, for a couple
reasons. First of all, Aline never had a problem with her sex before she
reached puberty and her mother began insisting that she act like a
lady. And Aline never considers a sex change for herself to be a
viable option. When sex change surgery is mentioned in the novel, it is
called a castration. No, the heart of the issue is not the physical
body, even if Orlanda enjoys the body. The reason that Orlanda feels
freer and happier inside a male body than Aline has felt in her female
body has to do with the way Alines society and community has denied
her freedoms that Orlanda in his male form is able to enjoy. Aline does

not resent being female. She resents being forced to become a

woman.
One is not born, but becomes a woman, wrote Simone de
Beauvoir, a French feminist and existentialist philosopher who devoted
much of her research to explaining how societal pressures and
traditions are responsible for the oppression and subordination, rather
than any inherent biological differences. In her most famous work The
Second Sex de Beauvoir maps out the life of a woman, through the
bodily changes that accompany puberty, and the way that attitudes
towards women assume that certain aspects of a womans physical
being - such as menstrual cycles and less muscular bodies as
compared to men can be objectively defined as disadvantages. (1)
In Orlanda, Alines mother even seems scandalized when her daughter
does not experience painful menstrual cramps along with the start of
her bleeding. (3, p. 26) And with the changes brought on by puberty
come a whole slew of expectations for how a woman ought to behave.
Aline describes how everything changed after this first step into
womanhood. She learned to handle objects without breaking her nails,
and ideas without causing ructions. She liked to please, and that is
what kills the boy within the girl. (3, .27)
So what are the consequences of Alines journey to womanhood?
What is it that she loses in this transition that causes her mental
anguish and despair? Jean-Paul Sartre, an existentialist philosopher and
contemporary of de Beauvoir posits that choice is what defines a

person. I am my choices. I cannot not choose. (Notation) This is what

distinguishes a Subject, a being-for-itself, from an Object, a being-forothers. Sartre says however, that the freedom to choose is actually a
burden because it causes stress and anxiety, and that people will try to
relieve that stress by turning themselves into an Object. Sartre calls
this bad faith, and says that while a person can try to delude him or
herself into thinking that this frees them of the burden of choice, it is a
falsehood because not choosing is still a choice. (5) However, de
Beauvoir writes that the perpetual subordination of women across the
world occurs because man has declared women as the second sex
and therefore women are the object, defined by their relation to the
subject, the man. (1) Sartre would probably say that Aline lives in bad
faith for a large portion of her life, because she allows others to make
her choices, and tries to transform herself into the obedient object that
her mother wants her to be. De Beauvoir would counter that all women
are instructed to become objects. Either way, the consequence of
Alines upbringing is that she loses her subjectivity, and therefore her
power of choice and eventually, the part of Aline that embodies choice,
Orlanda, flees.
Orlanda shows us how the being Orlanda represents choice in a
variety of ways within its text. The flashbacks to Alines childhood
sprinkled throughout paint the picture of an exuberant, creative child.
One particular conversation between Aline and Orlanda discussing
their shared memories stands out: Aline is dissatisfied with the ending

of Victor Hugos The Lions, and invents her own version, in which the
lions disobey their order from God to leave Daniel alone, and gobble
him up instead. This alludes to a key concept of Sartres existentialism:
Humans (or in this case, lions) are not objects to be used by God, but
have the power to make their own decisions. However, her parents are
not impressed by her imagination and skillful transformation of Hugos
verses, and they neatly shut her down. This event and other incidents
like it have a devastating effect on Alines confidence and creative
ambitions. Write your own! Such an idea did not belong to Aline. She
would reply, I think, that the conception and gestation of a work is a
mans job, without realizing that she is working on a book by a woman,
for her mother had so profoundly etched her convictions on her
daughter that Aline obeyed them without even being aware of it. (3,
p. 58) One of the most significant signs at the conclusion of the novel
that Aline has been able to regain her subjectivity is when she
delightedly crafts the letter explaining why Lucien has disappeared. We
are left to expect that she will continue writing her own works after the
story has ended.
The novel also uses physical differences between Aline and
Orlanda-in-Luciens-body to symbolize the subject/object dichotomy.
The imagery of Orlandas slim hips and flat chest is repeated
several times, and contrasted with Alines perpetual roundness of
breasts and other feminine traits. Orlanda delights over having a
penis, the strange little piece of flesh that governs the destiny of

every human being. The underlying idea is that the male form is
straightforward, direct and open, as compared to the round, secretive
nature of the female form. One scene in the novel has Orlanda
commenting on how much more work it is to be a woman, constantly
covering up ones appearance with make-up. Men in Alines world are
allowed to be honest, and women are expected to be coy. The same is
true for demonstration of physical and sexual desire. Orlanda gives
into every impulse he has. When he wants sex, he finds a partner and
takes what he wants. In the same scene when Orlanda and Aline
remember her rewrite of The Lions, Orlanda recalls how he had just sat
down to a steak dinner when he saw someone he wanted to have sex
with, so he took the steak in hand and went off in pursuit of his partner.
(3, p. 127) On the other hand, Aline has been raised to ignore her
physical wants in favor of propriety and good sense. One of the first
instances when we realize how devoid of choice and free will Aline is
after Orlanda has left her is when she found herself drinking a
mouthful of water. But Im not thirsty! she thought. (3, p. 23) And
again, the way we know that Aline has regained her subjectivity at the
end is how she chooses to deal with her physical desires. Albert
(Alines lover) would still be at home, she was impatient to get back to
him and to give him to Orlandas passion. (3, p. 216) It is important to
note here that Aline does not desire to give herself to Albert, which is

the common way that female characters express sexuality, but rather
she plans to take him and give him to herself, to fulfill her needs.
When Orlanda first establishes himself as separate from Aline, he
believes himself to be complete and content. This proves not to be
true, and his behavior and emotions become increasingly erratic as the
story progresses, giving the impression of a ticking time bomb.
Meanwhile, after she becomes aware of Orlandas existence and true
nature, Aline both realizes that she cannot exist forever without
Orlanda coming back to her, and interestingly, begins to grow stronger
and more confident without his presence. From a psychoanalytic
perspective, it seems that the presence of a double in the form of
Orlanda has forced Aline to confront the choices she made in her
childhood to comply with her mothers wishes, and choose to begin
reversing the effects. Orlanda represents what Aline might have
become if she had not allowed puberty and her societys subsequent
expectations to transform her personality so drastically. Orlanda is a
being made up of irrational drives, and such a being cannot exist for
long. Aline knows this. We cant remain apart. We will forever be like
two cripples. (3, p. 211) And when Orlanda resists, Aline makes the
violent, selfish choice to murder an innocent person rather than
continue to sacrifice herself. If we frame the events of this story in the
context of a psychodrama, Aline has successfully confronted her
unconscious thoughts and begun to heal the damage her childhood
had on her current mental state.

Orlanda is a rather horrifying story in many ways, with a high

body count. Aline and Orlanda are responsible for the deaths of two
people (Lucien and his mother,) and two broken hearts (Paul Renault
and Luciens old girlfriend.) The unnamed narrator/novelist addresses
this at the close of the novel. I have no blood on my hands, just a little
inkI have never claimed to write stories that are morally correct.
And if we were to start investigating, to determine who is responsible,
how far back would we have to go? Orlanda is one instance of a
worldwide phenomenon as ancient as human history. Women have
always been told what to do and what to be. Therefore, in a way, we
must all hold ourselves accountable for the resulting casualties until
such time that we begin recognizing and encouraging the subjectivity
of each and every human being. Aline is a hero because she was able
to confront her problems, get to the source, and make the decision to
stop living in bad faith. She realized that she deserved more than the
object role forced upon her, and she took back her subjectivity.

Works Cited
1) Beauvoir, Simone De. The Second Sex. New York: Knopf, 1953. Print.
2) Fromm, Erich, and Rainer Funk. The Revision of Psychoanalysis. Boulder, CO: Westview,
1992. Print.
3) Harpman, Jacqueline, and Ros Schwartz. Orlanda. New York: Seven Stories, 1999. Print.

4) Ridge, Rebecca M. "A Literature Review of Psychodrama." Journal of Group

Psychotherapy, Psychodrama, and Sociometry (2010): n. pag. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.
5) Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. New
York: Philosophical Library, 1956. Print.