The Ogre [Day 2]

There were a few things in the reading for today that both intrigued/repulsed me.

I. the execution of Weidmann

"'But Monsieur Tiffauges, he's just like you! Anyone would think he was your brother! He's like you, Monsieur Tiffauges, exactly like you!...It was grotesque, unbearable. You could hear the click of the knife rising jerkily between the posts. Then a hiss. The blood spurted out in floods. It was 4:32 AM" (118-119).

I thought this scene was particularly repulsive. I don't think it was the idea of the execution that I found repulsive, but rather the fact they still used the guillotine in France after almost two centuries. I do not like the idea of the guillotine, and especially the thousands of heads that rolled from it during the French Revolution. It just seemed like such a primitive, bloodthirsty way of executing someone in an age that was on the brink of technology. I didn't have much of anything insightful to say about this scene, only the fact that it repulsed me.

II. the camera

"When I range about the streets in my old Hotchkiss, I'm never quite happy unless the camera case slung around my neck is properly wedged between my legs. I enjoy being equipped with a huge leather-clad sex whose Cyclopean eye opens like lightning when I command it to look, and closes again inexorably on what it has seen. It is a marvelous organ..." (103).

I thought this was a slightly disturbing image, especially given the events that follow. As we discussed in class on Tuesday, Tiffauges is basically asexual, with neither heterosexual or homosexual relationships (excepting Rachel). I thought the camera replaced his sexual organs because he was microgenitomorphous, and also because the camera was the only thing that allowed him to have 'relations' with people.

At first, I felt slightly bad for pathetic Tiffauges when little Martine accused him of being the rapist, when he really only had intended to help her. However, when I thought back on the whole situation, it made sense that she would accuse him as the rapist. He was having 'relations' with the children, without their consent, by hanging around the school and taking their pictures without them knowing. When I read the line about Tiffauges hearing a scream, it was like I knew the events that were going to follow.

III. the pigeons

"he had come to the conclusion that many pigeon owners were not doing their patriotic duty, were turning a deaf ear and, not so much out of negligence as out of jealous attachment to their birds, were failing to write to the Erstein headquarters. It was just these birds he longed to see and touch and possess: as they were the most loved, they must also be the most desirable" (141).

I felt like with this statement, pigeons have replaced the children in Tiffauges life. Since he does not have the love of children to occupy his time, he has devoted countless hours and days to the rearing of a wounded pigeon and to the upkeep of the pigeon loft. He treats them with almost this sickening devotion, caring for them as if they were humans and not birds. I thought the grossest part was when he willingly prechewed their food and let them eat it from his mouth. I have a cat at home, and I love him tremendously, but I would never chew his cat food for him so that he would have an easier time eating it.

I also think Tiffauges takes his pigeon obsession too far, as he does with the children. Mme. Unruh, the dear widow with the small pigeon loft 'bequeathed' to her by her late husband, is torn about parting with the silver dove, and begs Tiffauges not to take him. However, her pleas do nothing to change his mind, and he takes the pigeon anyway. I feel like this is the same with the children. When the child falls down the stairs, and his knee is cut and injured, Tiffauges slaps and manipulates the poor child into whatever poses he likes, just so he take a photograph.

IV. the Monster

"Tiffauges threw it open and staggered back before the monster that stood framed there. It was at once like a horse, a buffalo, a deer. It took a step forward and was immediately halted by its enormous antlers, with jagged tips, which got caught on the doorposts...Now Tiffauges understood the begging demeanor, the awkward gait, the somnabulistic slowness; and because of his own awful myopia he felt close to the dark giant" (176-177).

I thought it was funny how a man so large as Tiffauges, who ate nothing but raw meat and raw milk, was afraid of another creature as monstrous as he was. I also found it funny how murderers and corpses have been compared to Tiffauges, but now it is an animal that he is being compared to. I thought the comparison of Tiffauges to the elk was rather fitting, because Tiffauges can also be lumbering and gentle. Although he had a strange obsession with children, and was given to strange tendencies, he never really meant any harm to anyone. This is just like the elk, who only wanted food because he could not see well enough to fully feed himself.



"'I feed blind elks,' he said" (181). My most favorite quote from this novel so far.