Beatrice's gaze revisited: anatomizing 'The Cenci.' - by Percy Shelley

Criticism, Wntr, 1996 by Young-Ok An

In Lacanian terms, Beatrice figures now for Cenci as the Law or Name-of-the-Father, "the censorious, castrating agency which places a taboo on the very desire it provokes into being."(24) Since the phallus is the effect of an imaginary fantasy of bodily completion, to Cenci, Beatrice embodies the fetishistic signifier of male power and desire. And since the phallus is the object of desire, insofar as Beatrice is Cenci's object of desire, she is the phallus, a "phallic woman."(25) In Beatrice the Count Cenci sees the recalcitrantly integral phallus, and his desire to penetrate the imaginary selfhood in Beatrice is precipitated after the banquet scene:

Be thou [the wine] . . . . . . manhood's purpose stern, And age's firm, cold, subtle villainy; As if thou were indeed my children's blood Which I did thirst to drink! The charm works well; It must be done; it shall be done. I swear!

(I.iii.173--78; emphasis added)

With a self-serving logic of elevated urgency ("It must be done; it shall be done"), accompanied by an orgiastic fervor ("I did thirst to drink"), Count Cenci reveals his intent to Beatrice:

. . . from this day and hour Never again, I think, with fearless eye, And brow superior, and unaltered cheek, And that lip made for tenderness or scorn, Shalt thou strike dumb the meanest of mankind; Me least of all. Now get thee to thy chamber! Thou too, loathed image of thy cursed mother, [To Bernardo. Thy milky, meek face makes me sick with hate! [Exeunt Beatrice and Bernardo.] (Aside.) So much passed between us as must make Me bold, her fearful!

(II.i.115--24; emphasis added)

While Beatrice's countenance is delineated through Count Cenci's gaze, what is traceable, if disavowed by the Count, is indeterminacy in Beatrice-"the lip made for tenderness or scorn." Cenci is driven to compensate for the humiliation caused by Beatrice's challenge in front of the banquet guests; even the presence of his unmasculine son ("Thy milky, meek face") compels him to strengthen his phallic identity by subjugating his strong-willed daughter ("me bold, her fearful"). By penetrating the imaginary whole of Beatrice's body, Cenci attempts psychically to subjugate her: he boasts his intention to "drag her, step by step,/ Through infamies unheard of among men" (IV.i.80--81), and ultimately to "poison and corrupt her soul" (IV.i.44).

Even in a state of shock, fear, delirium, and inertia after the rape, Beatrice sees the sexual economy as well: "'Twere better not to struggle any more./ Men, like my father, have been dark and bloody" (II.i.54--55). Highlighting her father's masculinity, Beatrice equates him with other men who share the same subject position. After all, she lives in a society where men perpetrate brutal and inexplicable sexual crimes, while female sexuality is considered to be a "circulating property which cements the system of male dominance."(26) Such sexual dynamics become precariously intensified when they occur within the confines of the family circle in which the power imbalance between family members plays a critical role. Considered as a private realm, a family is insulated from outside intervention, and the patriarch can have full access to female family members and exert absolute power over them. The most crucial aspect of the Count's rape of his daughter in The Cenci is that while such a heinous crime is easy for the Father to commit, it has no name and thus no appropriate channel to be exposed and prosecuted.