Genet is an outcast amid outcasts, a criminal and a pederast—outlaw to society, female to the fraternity of outlaws. When he writes for the stage, he wants his writing not to be fiction, not to be entertainment, not to be a mirror held up to whatever the stage is supposed to mirror, but to be a genuine act of aggression; his play is the continuation of a gesture performed by an outlaw against society.
No social protest enters into this outrage; Genet needs the existing order of things. He is Lucifer turned Satan, an aristocrat of Evil—the inverted world in which he dwells—and cannot desire to right the social structure without jeopardizing that which confers upon him his titles of nobility…. For Genet, Evil is the resplendence of Lucifer, the criteria evidencing the beauty of an act, an object, or a human being. Society is a sealed package, familiar, drab, secure—scarcely the right climate for what should be alive, significant, beautiful. Beyond this closed and sterile world is another into which society cannot expand without disintegrating; that outer planet is its mystery, short of which there is no poetry—something which society is intent on destroying but which is also its secret fascination. The outlaw inhabits this exotic world, and this is his first virtue. His second virtue comes from being the only one possessed of "that will, that daring to pursue a destiny that is against all rules" ("The Criminal Child"). These words should not, however, imply volition: the criminal is the one necessary being, the one who has not been shaped with another end in view. His is a world of subversion and death and beauty. The "saintliness" of the criminal (the two terms are frequently linked by Genet) is his rigor in not returning to the blandness of society, in resisting its blandishments.
This is a free excerpt of 304 words. There are 5,338 words (approx.
18 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Genet, Jean 1910–: Critical Essay by David I. Grossvogel Access Pass.
