Enslavement, pleasure, and other forms of agency

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ENSLAVEMENT, PLEASURE,

AND OTHER FORMS OF AGENCY

Reading a new model of agency through the classic sadomasochistic novels Venus in Furs, Justine and Juliette

Thesis for the RMa Cultural Analysis

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Introduction

Much has been written about the concept of agency. So much, in fact, that its actual meaning and significance have become blurred and complicated. The word as used in daily life appears to have clear and uncomplicated meanings. According to Merriam-Webster, there are several definitions that apply to business and public office, but the direction I will focus on is ‘the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.’ (Merriam-Webster) Though this meaning of the word as used in everyday life might seem straightforward, as a concept agency has proven to be sticky, both in the sense that it has “stuck around” (being an object for scholarly discussion for centuries) and that many ideas, traditions and most notably other concepts have stuck to it, being invoked as soon as the word “agency” is being used. For this thesis, I will focus on the tradition of the “structure-agency debate” and concepts like responsibility and

rationality.

One tradition that has stuck to this concept is the so-called “structure-agency debate”, and the nuances in this debate are the first reason for the complexity of the concept of “agency”. Whenever the concept of agency is introduced, this “debate” or perceived dichotomy swiftly follows. As a result, agency is often discussed in terms of a binary: either a person does or does not have agency. When a person is perceived to lack agency, it is assumed that her or his actions and decisions are fully determined by

structural influences; if they do have agency, their actions are caused by an autonomous being without any external influences whatsoever.

The general view of this debate, then, should actually be described as the

“determinism-autonomy dichotomy”. My insistence on this conclusion being limited to merely the “general view” and not the debate itself is deliberate: as I will show in the first chapter, by most of the authors associated with this debate this binary position is ultimately not held. In general, they actually accept both structural and personal (autonomous) factors as preconditions for agency. Though in their focus they may emphasize either the one element or the other, neither is actually denied by any author. To bring back the definition of the dictionary, then, agency is about how power is exercised, and more specifically concerns the negotiation of structural and personal

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specific process, about which authors writing on either or both structure and agency have tried to generalize in order to make sense of this process.

A second reason for the concept’s complexity and reach is its close relation to other concepts. Over the past centuries, agency has sometimes explicitly but more often implicitly been associated with many other concepts. These concepts are now implicitly invoked whenever the concept of “agency” is being used, adding to the importance and reach of the concept. What’s more, the concept has been used and criticized in many different disciplines. It is especially in the discipline-specific criticisms of the concept that it becomes clear that most of the time the criticism is not levelled at the concept itself, but at its implicit relationships with other concepts such as “autonomy” (a relation of equation) in the social sciences, “rationality” (which is seen as a prerequisite for agency) in the political sciences, and “human” in posthuman research. The concept’s use in different disciplines has led to a differentiation of the academic debates on the

concept. The debates and the resulting reworking of the concept remain quite disciplinarily focussed, resulting in very specific but different ways in which to think about the concept of agency.

The third reason for the concept’s complexity is agency’s relational nature. This begs the question, “agency in relation to what,” the answers to which, as they can be seen in academic debates, are manifold. One can have agency in relation to discourses (as in Foucauldian analyses), one’s corporeality (biological determinism plays a large role in, for example, feminist and ecological debates), power structures (with for example Marxist research and theorists focussing on minority groups), and other individuals. For this thesis, my aim is to develop a new and more inclusive model of agency, capable of dealing with these issues as well as addressing my own criticism with the traditional models of agency as they will be formulated in the thesis. In this new model, I will distinguish between three forms of agency — formal, substantive and experiential — which will be explored in the second part of this first chapter.

In order to develop this new model and ground it in concrete experiences and examples, I will read the concept of agency in dialogue with the nineteenth-century novel of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and the eighteenth-century novels of Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade. These two authors have lent their names to respectively masochism and sadism, two types of experience that play a large role in

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their works. Though these authors’ names are combined in the word “sadomasochism”, as an alternative sexual practice, their novels have hardly ever been read together in an academic setting (with notable exceptions like Gilles Deleuze’s Coldness and Cruelty). However, I will try to show that sadistic and masochistic practices are productive sites to investigate and further develop a new understanding of agency. The words sadism and masochism were both coined by the psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing to name two paraphilia he found in his practice, which were closely related to the sexual fantasies as presented in de Sade’s and Sacher-Masoch’s works.

Sadism and masochism are still named in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM (1994), and here we find the most inclusive definitions of the two terms.1_{Masochism is characterized by the experience of} sexual arousal in response to extreme pain, humiliation, bondage, or torture. (American Psychiatric Association) What has also been found is that ‘all patients who present with sexual masochism disorder have an erotic interest in a significant power discrepancy between partners.’ (Schaeffer) The opposite is true for sadism, where the physical or mental harm of others produces sexual excitement or pleasure. (Mayo; American Psychiatric Association) Though in extreme cases these two types of behaviour are still considered paraphilia’s, they are also parts of the subculture of BDSM (Bondage,

Dominance/Discipline, Submission/Sadism, Masochism), an umbrella-term for non-normative sexual behaviour that usually involves playing with power dynamics. It is in these kinds of sexual practices and lifestyles that issues of power and agency become most clearly visible, since they are usually the focus of the interpersonal dynamics. Though there are many different forms of relationships that fall under this umbrella, playing with power is a defining feature of these relationships. As a result, both power and agency become polarized, whether it is seen as the basis of the relationship, or it is simulated during specific times under specific circumstances.

In Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Furs (1870), the most important relationship is indeed based on power discrepancies between the partners. The relationship between the protagonist Severin and the other significant character Wanda is identified by a master-slave dynamic, in which Severin is treated as Wanda’s property. Through a literal

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contract, he signs over his agency to her. During the time of this relationship, she is the one in charge, and she makes the decisions for both Severin and herself. This is a

relevant case, then, to start my analysis into the workings and nuances of agency, which I will offer in my second chapter. Through a reading of two scenes, in two separate sections I will first provide an account of the basis and conditions of the master-slave relationship in the novel in relation to the concept of agency. In the second section, through a reading of a second passage from Venus in Furs, I will show how we can

observe the three elements of my new model of agency as well as reveal the relevance of a distinction between the three elements. This chapter therefore will present the three elements so they can be further developed in the third chapter.

The analyses of agency in the third chapter will be enacted through a reading of two of the Marquis de Sade’s novels. I will focus solely on two of his novels, Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue (1791) and Juliette, or Vice Amply Rewarded (1797). As will become clear from secondary literature, De Sade is read as a philosopher, who in his novels (as suggested by the titles of these two particular novels) argued against the simple acceptance of his contemporary discourses and value-systems. Justine is one of his early novels, in which we are introduced to both her and her sister Juliette. After experiencing misfortunes and losing everything at their respective ages of twelve and fourteen, they decide on different paths. Justine will follow the path of virtue, living by the Christian doctrine and upholding the ideals they she and her sister were brought up with. These virtues and ideals continuously lead her into terrible situations so that her whole novel is a tale of woe. What becomes of Juliette after her separation from her sister can be read in the novel that shares her name and offers the exact opposite:

Juliette lives her life as a libertine, always in search of more extreme pleasures and using everyone she encounters to pursue these pleasures with no regard for the other’s

interests.

In these two novels, power and agency play a large role, which allows us to gain a deeper understanding of agency. This third chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section the focus will be on the introduction of the two sisters at the start of Justine and on their differences in terms of agency. The second section will be about Justine’s story, focussing on one specific scene in which the three different forms of agency are especially relevant. The three forms of agency will be investigated both in relation to

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each other and in their respective relationships to the concepts of responsibility and change, which are traditionally associated with agency. What I will try to show is that their respective relations to the other concepts differ from each other, making the distinction between the three forms of agency even more productive for future analysis. Whereas in these sections I will mostly focus on the protagonists’ agency in relation to discourses and other people, in the third section, through a reading of sections from Juliette, we will look at agency in relation to the self. The control of one’s impulses is important in the philosophy of de Sade’s libertines, which allows us to investigate this specific kind of agency further.

In the conclusion, the products of my analyses will be linked to theoretical framework provided in the first chapter. Additionally, the new model of agency will be presented in its final form, followed by a reflection on the methods used and

recommendations for future research. Taken together, in this thesis I will aim to 1. Show the relevance and productivity as well as the complexities of the concept of agency; 2. Show the relevance of research into (classic) BDSM literature for our understanding of issues of power and agency; and 3. Contribute to the academic debates on both agency and the novels discussed.

1. Agency: The Academic Debates

In this chapter, I will start by giving an overview of the current state of the academic debates and uses of the concept of agency. In the first section an overview of the now centuries-old structure-agency debate will be presented. This debate is often invoked when the concept of agency is used, but not the focus of academic research, as if a mere pointing to this debate would explain the meaning and stakes of the concept. By

discussing four authors who were engaged in this debate I will try to briefly show this debate’s nuances but also the limitations in terms of understanding the concept itself. A further understanding of the concept will follow in the second section, where we will look at the relationships between agency and the concepts of autonomy, rationality and it’s generally assumed prefix “human” through the critiques of three discipline-specific

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needed if we want to turn agency into a more productive critical tool. The elements of this new model will be presented in the third section of this chapter so we can use this new understanding of agency as a critical tool to explore human behaviour in the analyses of the novels in the next two chapters.

1.1 The structure-agency debate

The binary and mutually exclusive understanding of structure and agency have been best described by Derek Layder in Modern Social Theory (1997):

Traditionally, approaches to social analysis have tended to split into two broad camps: those concerned with what Giddens calls “interpretative analysis”, and those concerned with “institutional analysis” (Giddens 1984). [...] Both groups therefore tend to reduce the analysis of social phenomena either to the realm of human agency and interaction or to the macro-realm of social structures and systems. (Layder 4-5)

This tendency that Layder describes in social analysis, has traditionally also been true in other disciplines, most notably history and philosophy.2_{In this section, I will show the} nuances and stakes of this debate by discussing four philosophers who are used as agents of one of the two poles.

In the “agency camp” we can find William James, who, though he is not often brought up in this debate, shows that already in the nineteenth century this debate was seen as old and played-out, but still played a large role in discussions about human action and responsibility. Sartre and his existentialism, are much quoted in terms of the debate. He formulates the stakes of this debate in terms similar to James, but, as we will see, even in his view human freedom, or agency, is always limited and it is exactly these limits that according to him are the conditions for freedom. Foucault’s focus on power and the systems through which it is exercised put him securely on the structure-side of the debate, though surprisingly he turns out to have views on freedom and limitations

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that are similar to Sartre’s. Butler then, as a Foucauldian scholar, has attempted to redefine agency to make it compatible with Foucault’s seemingly determinist theories. Though with her there is still a focus on cultural and discursive determinations, she actively worked to bridge the apparent gap between structure and agency with which we will conclude this section.

In his 1884 essay ‘The Dilemma of Determinism,’ William James writes: ‘A common opinion prevails that the juice has ages ago been pressed out of the free-will controversy, and that no new champion can do more than warm up stale arguments which every one has heard.’ (James 145) For him, this free-will controversy, which in the rest of his essay he calls “the dilemma of determinism” is the polarized structure-agency debate as it is still seen now: either our actions and the world are determined to be exactly this and there is no other world possible (fate), or a person actually does have free will and can choose their own actions. From this first sentence of his essay we can see that the debate was seen as old even then, with all of the arguments mere repetitions of what had been said before. However, James disagrees with this view and spends the rest of the essay discussing the problems with the deterministic standpoint. One of his main arguments is that if everything is determined, people are not responsible for their own actions, which would result in the disappearing of morality: good and bad can only exist if there is a choice. (James 155-165) Though these days the focus in the structure-agency debate lies on more contemporary authors, the morality issue is an argument that still plays a role in the structure-agency debate, most notably in Jean-Paul Sartre’s works.

Sartre, whose existentialist philosophy is posited on the autonomy pole of the agency spectrum, famously stated that existence precedes essence, by which he means that man is not born the way he is but creates himself. In his now published public lecture ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’ (1946) Sartre has the following to say about his phenomenological doctrine:

The first effect of existentialism is to make every man conscious of what he is, and to make him solely responsible for his own existence. […] When

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all men. In fact, in creating the man each of us wills ourselves to be, there is not a single one of our actions that does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for any of us unless it is good for all. (Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism 23-24)

His theory does appear to be one of extreme autonomy: (a) man’s essence is not

something that is given, but all choices a man makes are his alone. This is shown as well from the moral aspect of his argument: not even morality exists a-priori but is a product of the choices every man makes himself.

Even in Sartre’s own philosophy we find limits to this freedom of choice, though he never formulated it like that himself. In his most famous monography Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre limits a subject’s freedom in two ways. The first limit on freedom lies in Sartre’s own model of interaction, ways of structuring behaviour that appear to be the same for every man and cannot be not-chosen. We find this most explicitly in Sartre’s theory on ‘the look,’ in which man becomes aware of himself first when confronted with the look of the Other. This leads to the realization that the

subject’s freedom is limited by the freedom of the other and consequently submitted to an intricate powerplay between the two subjects to annihilate the other’s freedom. (Sartre, Being and Nothingness) Though Sartre claims that in fact the Other can never actually reach your freedom – so within this model freedom could be saved – the fact that all human interaction will necessarily follow this model means that some part of human behaviour and sense of self are beyond choice. This is the first way in which Sartre’s seemingly extreme form of autonomy is limited. The second way in which he limits freedom of choice makes this possible. There are basic facts of reality, he admits, that are beyond our control: a residuum of existents, ‘[b]ut this residue is far from being originally a limit for freedom; in fact, it is thanks to this residue – that is, to the brute in-itself as such – that freedom arises as freedom.’ (Sartre, Being and Nothingness 482) The idea that the limits to freedom are actually the prerequisite for freedom itself may sound

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counterintuitive. It does show however, that for Sartre, this agent of freedom, there actually are limits to one’s agency.

On the other side of the spectrum, we find Foucault. His understanding of “discourse” and the internalization of these discourses, does not appear to leave much room for individuality and agency and lean more towards determinism. However, in his 1985 essay ‘The Subject and Power’, he made a statement about freedom that is quite similar to Sartre’s:

“Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free.” By this we mean individual or collective subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several kinds of conduct, several ways of reacting and modes of behaviour are available. Where the determining factors are exhaustive, there is no relationship of power: slavery is not a power relationship when a man is in chains, only when he has some possible mobility, even a chance of escape. (In this case it is a question of a physical relationship of constraint.) Consequently, there is not a face-to-face confrontation of power and freedom as mutually exclusive facts (freedom disappearing everywhere power is exercised) but a much more complicated interplay. In this game, freedom may well appear as the condition for the exercise of power (at the same time its precondition, since freedom must exist for power to be exerted, and also its permanent support, since without the possibility of recalcitrance power would be equivalent to a physical determination). (Foucault 341-342)

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have any choice, agency or freedom, there can be no (relationship of) power: freedom must exist for power to be exerted. It is significant that philosophers from both sides of the “structure-agency debate” seem to suggest that we cannot have one without the other, making the debate anything but a binary model. However, what agency in Foucault would look like has been difficult to extrapolate from his works.

A possible answer has been formulated by Butler. Her concept of performative agency has been regarded as a form of agency, which would fit with Foucault’s ideas about pervasive power. In Gender Trouble (1990), Butler criticizes two presumptions about agency she sees in most academic work about the concept. The first presumption she questions is that ‘agency can only be established through recourse to a prediscursive “I”, even if that “I” is found in the midst of a discursive convergence’; the second ‘that to be constituted by discourse is to be determined by discourse.’ (Butler 195) The first presumption she tackles relates to the assumption that agency is always exercised by a fixed subject. However, for her the subject is not a set individual that exercises a certain act but is actually constituted through the act itself, in an almost existentialist sense. (Butler 195)

However, for the present section, the second assumption she questions is the more significant one. Though her work, like Foucault’s, doesn’t seem to allow for any form of stepping out of an all-encompassing and all-constituting discourse, here she explicitly denies that this needs to lead to a form of determinism, there still is room for agency. She proposes to see agency in relation to two other concepts: performativity and iterability. Butler argues that gender is established through repetition (iteration) of acts, shaped by discourse to have a certain meaning. Discursive norms thus are reproduced through an agent’s acts. However, ‘[t]he subject is not determined by the rules through which it is generated because signification is not a founding act, but rather a regulated process of repetition that both conceals itself and enforces its rules precisely through the production of substantializing effects.’ (Butler 198) Agency then, is the possibility for variation within this repetition, which can be seen as a failing of the discursive norm. (Butler 198) This is a performative form of agency which does not necessarily include a conscious act of subversion. Rather, the discursive norm itself produces necessary failures which for Butler is precisely where subversion and agency are situated: agency and subversion are the unintended by-products of the unintended failing of an iteration.

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1.2 Disciplinary Interconceptual Relationships

After this analysis of the complex relationship between the concepts of structure and agency, we will now turn to more contemporary issues with the concept that are on the whole extremely discipline-specific. In the previous section, we have already seen some interconceptual relationships like that between agency and responsibility, with William James and Jean-Paul Sartre, a specific relationship that will come back in the literary analyses in the second and third chapter. For this section, we will look at three other conceptual relationships: between agency and “autonomy”, “rationality” and “the human”, respectively. Many of the criticisms on the concept of agency has focussed not on the concept itself but rather on these implied interconceptual relationships. The bringing in of these criticisms then, can help us gain a deeper understanding of agency’s complexities and problems as a concept, as well as the scope of issues in which it can be a useful tool.

1.2.1 Agency and Autonomy

For the relationship between agency and autonomy, we will look at social theorist Paul Reynolds’ book chapter ‘Women’s Agency and the Fallacy of Autonomy’ (2015). He argues for a clearer distinction between agency and autonomy – where the influence of structures is part of the concept of agency, but not of autonomy – and implies that the conflation of these two concepts lie at the base of many of the problems with social and legal theorizing about rape cases. He recognizes two problematic ways in which sexual violence against women is seen. The first recognizes a woman as an autonomous subject and consequently as responsible for whatever happens to her, including sexual violence. Arguments about the style of dress and conduct of the victim are brought into the (legal) discussion as a result, becoming the central referent for understanding the episode of sexual violence. In the second way of looking at sexual violence, the woman is not seen as an autonomous being, but rather as a passive victim unable to make her wishes clear. A result is that the defence of the perpetrator will appeal to mens rea – which speaks to intent, resulting in the argument that the perpetrator’s intent was never to rape – and

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Both ways of looking at this issue have been heavily criticized in that they do not reflect the lived experience of women in these situations, and indeed will lead to either victimization of all women or a blaming of the victims of rape. Reynolds here makes a clear distinction between autonomy and agency, arguing that autonomy implies a person’s self-governing core of being, fashioned upon (bourgeois and wealthy) men and beginning with a sense of definite self-constitution. Agency on the contrary aspires to free choice and self-governance whilst at the same time recognizing the influencing circumstances that are context and agent specific. (Reynolds 199-200) More research needs to be done in this direction, but Reynolds’ attention to the relationship between women’s autonomy and agency seems to ground in a concise manner into this

conceptual origin 1. the feminist criticisms on the discourses around rape; 2. (sexual) consent; and 3. perhaps even (women’s) social relations in a more general sense. We will see Reynolds’ analysis about the relation between agency and victimhood back in our reading of especially Justine. Furthermore, in the way I will use the concept of “agency”, this distinction between agency and autonomy will be taken seriously: they will not be conflated in this essay.

1.2.2 Agency and Rationality

Diana Coole in her article ‘Rethinking Agency’ (2005) is critical of the concept as it has traditionally been understood in a way similar to Reynolds’ critique of the relationship between agency and autonomy. However, she goes a step further when she criticizes the implied ontological identification of the concept of agency with rational, individual subjects, which is similar to Butler’s criticism of the “fixed subject”. (Coole 124-125; Butler 195) Coole argues that when thinking of agency, instead of looking at “agents” we should focus on “agentic capacities”. (Coole 126) According to Coole, with the

increasingly pervasive and global forms of power associated with postmodernity it is claimed that

subjects are too unstable or fragmented in their identities, too opaque in their self-knowledge and too nonrational in their thinking to sustain personal commitments or collective identifications; that there is no essential inner self, repository of freedom, will, identity or autonomy;

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that subjectivity is merely an effect of power or performative iteration; that history has no overall meaning or direction. (Coole 126)

If this is true, agency as a concept indeed needs to be rethought. Her understanding of postmodernism allows Coole to detach agency from the related concepts of subject, free will and autonomy. She suggests that we might look at agentic capacities as contingent phenomena. Instead of linking these phenomena directly to the stable subject that now no longer exists, we can place them on a spectrum with on the one pole the

pre-individual corporeal experience in the phenomenological sense, and on the other the trans-individual intersubjective experience. (Coole 128) Between the two pools we would see singularities that can cover both individual and collective agents. (Coole 133) By distinguishing between the individual, pre-individual and trans-individual, Coole finds a way to maintain a form of agency that is not necessarily tied to a singular rational human agent. Additionally, agency is not something a person has, but a context-specific mode of action in the form of agentic capacities. Where Reynolds brought to light the conflation of agency and autonomy and the risks this entails, Coole here has shown that when using the concept of agency we assume a fixed and stable subject exercising this agency, whilst in postmodern thought this stable subject becomes increasingly unstable. Her model allows for agency even without a stable rational subject, in seeing agentic capacities instead.

1.2.3 Agency and the Human

However, the implicit evocation of the “human” in the concept of agency is still present in Coole’s model. This idea of agency being a human quality has been challenged by posthumanists like Pickering and Barad. The model of agency Karen Barad develops in her article ‘Posthumanist Performativity’, akin to Coole focuses on agentic forces instead of human agents. She writes:

Reality is not composed of things-in-themselves or things-behind-phenomena but “things”-in-things-behind-phenomena. The world is intra-activity in its

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agency. That is, it is through specific intra-actions that phenomena come to matter – in both senses of the word. […] In summary, the universe is agential intra-activity in its becoming. The primary ontological units are not “things” but phenomena – dynamic topological reconfigurings/ entanglements/ relationalities/ (re)articulations. And the primary semantic units are not “words” but material-discursive practices through which boundaries are constituted. This dynamism is agency.

Agency is not an attribute but the ongoing reconfigurings of the world.

(Barad 817, 818) [my emphasis]

In this model, agency is not something a person has, an attribute, but the relationships between “things” within a phenomenon. It is not a person’s quality but something that takes place. Furthermore, Barad’s model allows us to look at different elements of a “thing” or “person” to have an agential relationship with each other and possibly have different relationships with another “thing”. This reworking of the concept, too, could be well adapted and experimented with in other disciplines to come to a more thorough understanding of agency that might reflect better the lived experiences on a daily basis. However elegant her solution, what is missing from it is human experiences of agency and the concepts of reflections and self-awareness that are closely linked to the concept of agency. These elements are what distinguish human from non-human agency, a distinction which has no place in her new model. Furthermore, as we will see in the following section, experience of and reflection on agency, can have an impact on human agency itself. Barad’s model then, is not yet equipped to make sense of some elements of the concept of agency beyond her own discipline.

What I have aimed to show what these interconceptual discussions is that the concept of agency is still considered extremely relevant but that the traditional understanding of the concept, with all its implied relationships to other concepts is problematic. These problems do not only exist for specific theoretical disciplines, but as we have seen with Reynolds can actually have concrete negative consequences for people’s lived reality. These conceptual relationships therefore need to be exposed and

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examined, and in order to come to a productive understanding of agency, these specific disciplinary issues need to transgress disciplinary borders and be re-considered for every specific project. However, the lessons learned from the different theorists we discussed should have different consequences for our thinking about and working with the concept. The distinction between agency and autonomy Reynolds argued for is something we need to be aware of and possibly reinforce every time we think about agency and the reasons behind human action. With Coole, we can start thinking about agency in in a time where belief in a stable, unified subject is disappearing, allowing for a more complex and multi-layered, but at the same time possibly more productive form of agency. Barad’s ideas are related to this, but go a step further: with Bennett and Barad we can start thinking about agency in a way that is not always necessarily related to humans, but can allows for non-human agents – like for example matter – as well. This last lesson will not be used that much in the analyses for this current research; because of the scope of this work I have decided to focus mostly on the human agents who are the protagonists of the novels. The model of agency that I will present here then, may not be as well suited for the analysis of non-human agents. However, this should be a question for future research.

1.3 Agency – a new model

From the two discussions of the concept of agency that were the focus of the previous two sections of this chapter, we can conclude that indeed agency is a complex concept, about which the academic debates are extremely differentiated, especially by

disciplinary boundaries. With all this complexity and differentiation, the productivity of the concept for critical research has got a bit out of focus. What I will do in this thesis, is to start developing a model of agency that can be used as an analytical tool. I argue that we have to differentiate between three forms of agency: formal, substantive and

experiential agency. In the following three subsections I will provide a brief description of what I understand by these new forms of agency, so in the next two chapters we can see how these concepts would work as analytical tools.

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1.3.1 Formal agency

Formal agency is closely related to the traditional way of looking at agency. It can most easily be visualized as a point on a scale with on the one side determinism and on the other absolute autonomy. Because in most academic discourse both absolute autonomy and absolute determinism are not seen as realistic portrayals of the motivations behind agents’ actions, we can situate agency somewhere between the two poles,

acknowledging both an acting subject and the norms and discourses that may influence their acts. As we have seen especially with Sartre and Foucault, most authors accept that both external influences and personal choice are part of their understanding of agency.

Not only these authors’ understanding of agency can be placed on this spectrum; the agency of an actor in specific circumstances can be placed on this spectrum as well. With Coole and Barad I will argue that indeed a person’s amount of formal agency is not fixed, but stands in a dynamic relation to external factors, and therefore can change depending on the circumstances. As we will see with Severin, the protagonist of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, when one finds oneself a slave in a masochistic Master-slave relationship, one’s actions may be determined to a large extend by one’s Master’s will. This person, in their role as slave, may make a conscious decision to move on the

agency-scale towards determinism, reducing their own agency as much as possible. The same is true for Justine: with her we will see how the Christian and societal discourses have come to define her, determining her behaviour almost to the extreme point of determinism. The exact opposite is true with Juliette: she creates a situation for herself where it is possible for her to transgress societal norms and almost act as an

autonomous individual. She can do almost anything she desires, without being limited by external forces. It is in these extreme cases of determinism and near-autonomy that the stakes of the concept of agency become most clear.

Formal agency is about how you engage with the factors that could limit and determine your choices, whether they be discourses, other people or, as we will see with Juliette, can also be about issues of identity and attitude. There is never just one “formal agency” then, no fixed point on a one-dimensional spectrum, though visualizing it in this way may help making it more concrete. Rather, for every factor that can influence your thinking, acting, or decision making, a spectrum could be shown. Furthermore, the different spectra can influence each other.

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1.3.2 Substantive agency

Substantive agency is an agential relationship characterized by interpretation. Through an agent’s acts the discursive norms which limit the actor’s formal agency are

interpreted and repeated. This interpretation is not necessarily a conscious process but can be performed in a mode similar to Butler’s understanding of performative agency: a specific interpretation can be chosen through action as well. Substantive agency is a dynamic relationship in which external or internal influences are interpreted and acted upon in a specific way. As we will see, even when a person is determined by norms there are still variations possible in the way these norms are performed. Hardly any norm or command can be formulated in such a way that no alternative interpretation is possible. It follows then that even when a person wants to adhere to a set of norms or commands, there are alternative courses of action possible within the limits that are set up by the norm-producing entities. As long as there is room for difference, there is a possibility for choice and therefore agency.

Substantive agency can be defined as the subject’s being in an interpretive relationship with a norm-producing entity, whether this be a person, a group of people or society at large. This relationship is not just one-sided. The specific interpretation of norms and directives can cause a change in or reflection on the norms and structures themselves. As with Butler’s much quoted example: the performance of female gender norms by drag queens can cause one to reflect on the gender norms themselves. (Butler) However, this substantive agency does not only exist in relation to norms and

discourses. It is in relation to the material world as well, that we can see these relationships of substantive agency. One of the simplest examples is the way you use everyday objects. The way you hold your toothbrush or cutlery when you use them can be the same for a long time, and then, without a conscious decision, may change. These and more complex habits are repeated over and over until the iteration “fails” and the habit changes. This can be a physical activity or even the value you assign similar experiences. It is precisely in this “failing of the iteration” where substantive agency becomes visible. Repetition and change are the visible outcomes of substantive agency.

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1.3.3 Experiential agency

To explain experiential agency it is helpful to first look at work on agency that has been done in the discipline of psychology, where scholars have started to look at the way personal beliefs about agency influence both the actors’ actions and their agency in the physical world. With the concept of “perceived control” they address hey ways in which people experience the amount of agency they have and the control they have over the outcome of their decisions. In Vohs and Schooler’s article ‘The Value of Believing in Free Will’, experiments amongst children showed that a deterministic worldview may have the consequence of encouraging cheating behaviour. (Vohs and Schooler 54) Vohs and Schooler’s idea that your beliefs about the control you have over your own actions, and therefore your own responsibility and morality, have specific consequences for

behaviour and agency is not a new one.

Already in 1988 Skinner, Chapman and Baltes published an article giving a literature review about perceived control and proposing a new model – again based on experiments with children – where control beliefs, agency beliefs and means-end beliefs had to be distinguished from each other. (Skinner, Chapman and Baltes) Albert Bandura has best formulated the significance of this “perceived control” – or, as he calls it: self-efficacy beliefs – in his 1989 article ‘Human Agency in Social Cognitive Theory’:

Among the mechanisms of personal agency, none is more central or pervasive than people’s beliefs about their capabilities to exercise control over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs function as an important set of proximal determinants of human motivation, affect, and action. They operate on action through motivational, cognitive and affective intervening processes. (Bandura 1175)

This concept of perceived control was the inspiration for my own concept of experiential agency. The findings from psychology have not yet found their way outside of this

specific discipline, but as I will show in this present thesis can be extremely productive in both theory and every day practice.

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Experiential agency revolves around feelings of freedom and experiences of options being limited. It is a specific mindset or psychological experience which influences the way you negotiate and engage with norms and limits to the choices you want to make. This specific form of agency has been developed to account for the difference in people’s experience of the extent to which they can make their own decisions. If someone feels as though they do not have a choice, there is only one possible course of action open to them (as we will see with Justine), this feeling indeed makes it impossible for them to make any other choice. Their experience becomes their reality.

Experiential agency can be seen in a certain attitude towards one’s decisions, norms and discourses. When people feel that their behaviour is determined by certain discourses, afflictions or circumstances, this becomes true. There actually is no other choice they can make and no way out of this determinism. However, when they feel that they have a choice as to how to deal with them, the possible courses of action increase in number. This form of agency may seem less context-specific and more a personal

attribute. However, as many psychological phenomena, personal history and learned information from authority and previous experiences influence the experiential agency one has. It follows then, that if one can control their attitude and meaning-making with regard to specific experiences, one can change one’s agency in the traditional sense. Experiential agency then, needs to be a part of the concept of agency itself. How this works exactly will be shown in the following chapters. In the second chapter, the concept will be re-introduced in relation to specific scenes in Venus in Furs. In the third chapter, we will look at experiential agency in relation to other concepts: the other two forms of agency that I have just distinguished; the relationship between this form of agency and the concepts of responsibility and change; and experiential agency that is directed inwards, as the experience of self-control. The same will be done for both formal and substantive agency.

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2. The Victim in Search of a Torturer: Agency in Venus in Furs

In this chapter I will analyse two passages from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, that will help present the three elements of my new model for agency, as well as their relevance in relation to the novel. The protagonist of this novel, Severin, has been taken as the prime example of a masochist, defined as a person who gets sexual pleasure from experiencing pain. However, Severin’s desire is more extensive than that. In his childhood he had a cruel aunt who always wore furs. When he was being bad, she would put him on one of her fur coats and hit him with whips, and this is the nature of his fantasy. He has come to equate this figure of his aunt, a beautiful, cruel woman, dressed in furs, with the goddess Venus and has been looking for a woman who can be this ideal for him. When he is in his twenties, a female neighbour (Wanda) appears to be his

embodied ideal and Severin begins to hope he has finally found his ideal woman. Severin and Wanda decide to travel to Florence and to there live as Master and slave. (Sacher-Masoch)

This chapter will be divided into two sections, focussing on two different

passages in Venus in Furs. The focus of the first section is the slave contract signed by the protagonist Severin. The close reading of the contract in section combination with the secondary literature used in this section, will provide an analysis and account of the basis and conditions of the Master-slave relationship in the novel. The second will focus on the end of the relationship through an analysis of passages at the end of the novel and focus on the three different forms of agency we can see at play in these passages.

Through these analyses a deeper understanding of agency and power relations in this specific form of a Master-slave relationship will be developed.

2.1 The Slave Contract, non-places and non-agency

In this section I will focus on the basis and conditions for the Master-slave relationship in Venus in Furs, by means of the slave contract. I will first show the relevance of the contract both in terms of understanding the novel and in terms of agency and

masochism. Once this is established, I will develop my model of three forms of agency through a close-reading of this contract, showing both the value and the stakes of this new model.

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The role of power and agency – which, as was shown in the introduction can be defined as the ability to exercise power – is already present in the moral of the story, as it is formulated at the end of Venus in Furs:

That woman, as nature has created her and as man is at present educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he, and is his equal in education and work. (Sacher-Masoch 202)

If this whole story is a moral lesson about the relations between gender and power, it would make sense to read the relationship between the two main characters (Severin and Wanda) with this in mind. We are used to seeing women – at the time when this book was written – as submissive and less powerful than men. For a Master-slave relationship where the woman is the master to succeed, there would have to be a reversal of this power.

In the novel, the formal form of this reversal can be found in the slave contract Wanda has Severin sign. We can read the contract as a representation of the author’s consciously shifting of the power relations: the contract is necessary for two people of the same class and different genders to flip the power structure, but still is relying on the power on the powerful-turned-slave. Gilles Deleuze in Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty – his 2006 book, focussing specifically on masochism and Venus in Furs – sees the contract as highly significant as well. For him, the contract is the symbol of what masochism is actually about:

we are dealing instead with a victim in search of a torturer and who needs to educate, persuade and conclude an alliance with the torturer in order to realize the strangest of schemes. […] The sadist thinks in terms of institutionalized possession, the masochist in terms of contracted alliance. Possession is the sadist’s particular form of madness just as the

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fashion the woman into a despot, that he should persuade her to cooperate and get her to “sign.” (Deleuze 20-21)

For Deleuze, the contract is at the core of the “madness” that is masochism. For his statement that persuading the woman to sign is part of the masochistic process, simple prove can be found in that the contract is only signed in the second half of the book and indeed, that Severin spends most of the first part convincing Wanda that this

relationship is indeed something she should desire. Most of the book we are in suspense – another element that according to Deleuze is a core element of masochism – awaiting the contract and the start of the masochistic relationship. (Deleuze 33) Through these different elements Deleuze brings to light the significance of the contract in the

masochistic fantasy and experience. However, for all his insights into this contract, Deleuze does not offer a close-reading of the contract in Venus in Furs itself. In this section I will show that such a close reading can offer new insights into the specificities of the relationship between Wanda and Severin, masochism and – the focus of the current research – the concept of agency.

With this, we have come to the reading of the contract itself, which begins as follows:

Agreement between MME. Von Dunajew and Severin von Kusiemski

Severin von Kusiemski ceases with the present day being the affianced of Mme. Wanda von Dunajew, and renounces all the rights appertaining thereunto; he on the contrary binds himself on his word of honor as a man and nobleman, that hereafter he will be her slave until such time that she herself sets him at liberty again. (Sacher-Masoch 123)

This paragraph seems to pertain to Wanda’s liberties and regaining of freedom specifically (free from the rights he used to have over her because of his gender and social status) and not to a limitation of Severin’s, supporting my earlier statement that the contract is the formal representation of a reversal of the normative power relations. However, the real issue here is related to power and agency: the legitimization and

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effects of this contract are solely dependent on Severin’s word of honor as a man and nobleman. His ability to consent to this contract – a classic example of agency – seems to rely on a very gendered and class-related model of power. If as a slave Severin would not have power nor agency, as we are used to seeing relationships between Masters and slaves, the contract would not be valid anymore. One way to bypass this possible tension is if we would see his act of agency in signing this contract as a form of agency that needs only one conscious decision at the starting point and that is continual, does not need reaffirmation to keep it in place. Even though he seizes to have agency in the same moment that he exercises it, his agentic decision would still be valid, exist

autonomously, severed from Severin’s current status in life. However, this would be contrary to the part of the sentence that binds him to his word of honor as a man and nobleman: in the period that the contract is valid Severin spends much of his time without supervision, so formally the only thing preventing him from just walking away is his word. If during this time he would no longer be a nobleman, he would no longer have a ‘word of honor as a man and nobleman’, and no longer be bound to this contract.

So the continuation of the relationship proposed in this contract is solely

dependent on Severin’s continued (gender and class-related) power and agency, even in his position as Wanda’s slave. His culturally-constructed power is still present and even necessary for this agreement to work, and is not transferred to Wanda. It appears as though the power between the two individuals is a different form of power, that exists next to the power and agency he has as a man and nobleman. I will argue that here we see a first sign for why we need to distinguish between formal and experiential agency. His formal, discourse-related formal agency is still in effect, though he desires the experience of non-agency within the relationship.

The nature and extent of Wanda’s power and agency are further explicated in the next paragraph of the contract, which reads:

As the slave of Mme. von Dunajew he is to bear the name Gregor, and he is unconditionally to comply with every one of her wishes, and to obey every one of her commands; he is always to be submissive to his

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mistress, and is to consider her every sign of favor as an extraordinary mercy. (Sacher-Masoch 123)

The name Gregor was chosen earlier in the book, immediately after Wanda told Severin he is not a man she would ever marry, but that as a slave he would do. (Sacher-Masoch 100-101) She then gives him his new name, as she gives him some initial instructions about how to be her slave. By this assigning of a slave-name she clearly starts to distinguish between the “man Severin” that she would never marry, and the “slave Gregor” that “will do”. Wanda is literally recreating Severin, having agency over his name, his actions and even his perceptions of her.

Some of the demands in this contract are unsurprising: to comply, obey and be submissive are things we would expect from a Master/slave relationship like this. They all appear to place the power with Wanda. An extra layer is added to this power in the next paragraph:

Mme von Dunajew is entitled not only to punish her slave as she deems best, even for the slightest inadvertence or fault, but also is herewith given the right to torture him as the mood may seize her or merely for the sake of whiling away the time. Should she so desire, she may kill him whenever she wishes; in short, he is her unrestricted property. (Sacher-Masoch 123-124)

It is explicated here that Wanda is absolutely free to do with Gregor whatever she wants, even taking his life. This seems to be an extreme form of power, and a form of

possession that is usually restricted to lifeless objects and the historical slaves. One large difference between Gregor’s position on the one hand and objects and historical slaves on the other is that Gregor’s contract can easily be ended, though the contract even sets rules up for when Severin is free again:

Should Mme. Von Dunajew ever set her slave at liberty, Severin von Kusiemski agrees to forget everything that he has experienced or

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suffered as her slave, and promises never under any circumstances and in no wise to think of vengeance or retaliation. (Sacher-Masoch 124)

This paragraph tells us that only Wanda has the power to end the contract. What’s significant here, is that if she does, he is to forget about everything. This denotes that Severin’s enslavement is a time set apart from “normal life”. He not only is a different person for the duration of the contract, signified by his new name, but the period of his enslavement should not have any effects on the rest of his life. The master-slave

relationship is an event in a specific time and a specific place (the pair travels to Florence in order to be able to have this kind of relationship without experiencing the judgment of their peers) which is set apart distinctly from their ordinary life.

This paragraph is also a way for Wanda to protect herself if Severin would ever start to resent her for his experiences during his time as her slave. However, this does not account for the first part of the sentence where Severin agrees to forget everything that he has experienced or suffered as her slave. We might see their relationship therefore as a non-place: a transitional place that cannot be defined as relational, historical or concerned with identity. (Augé 77-78) An in-between with its own set of rules and its own implications but set apart from your ordinary life. This non-place is an experience, a state of mind, and this is where I will situate the source of the previously mentioned apparent paradox where Severin keeps his formal agency, but experiences non-agency.

At first glance, it might seem like a stretch to take Augé’s concept and apply it to this relationship. His examples for the better part focus on travellers and means of transportation (e.g. airports, highways and trains), and even though Wanda and Severin do travel and see this travelling as a condition for the success of their arrangement, this link seems thin. However, many of the elements of non-place that Augé mentions, do resonate with Severin’s story. The most obvious one is the contract, mentioned by Augé in relation to airports. Augé states that the user of a non-place is in contractual relations with it, or the powers that govern it. Furthermore, the contract always relates to the individual identity of the contracting party, when entering a non-space like an airport, a

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countersigned (so to speak) the contract.’ (Augé 101-102) We can easily see how this would be applicable to the agreement between Wanda and Severin: it is Severin’s identity as a man and nobleman that the contract relates to, and the non-place of the relationship can only exist by the power of this identity and the proof of it by Severin’s giving his word through signing the contract.

The anonymity that Augé referred to is extremely relevant as well. He describes the state of being in a non-place as follows:

A person entering the space of non-place is relieved of his usual determinants. He becomes no more than what he does or experiences in the role of passenger, customer or driver. Perhaps he is still weighed down by the previous day’s worries, the next day’s concerns; but he is distanced from them temporarily by the environment of the moment. Subjected to a gentle form of possession, to which he surrenders himself with more or less talent or conviction, he tastes for a while – like anyone who is possessed – the passive joys of identity-loss, and the more active pleasure of role-playing. (Augé 103)

These lines reflect perfectly Severin’s experiences of his relationship. We have already seen the loss of identity, transforming Severin into ‘no more than what he does or

experiences in the role of’ Wanda’s slave. Whereas his name and word were the gateway into the relationship, he appears to lose them during the time the contract is in effect, and most definitely plays a role (that of a slave). When read in relation to Venus in Furs, Augé’s use of the word “possession” acquires a double-meaning: Severin is both Wanda’s possession, and possessed by “the moment”. There is hardly any reflection on past or future in the book, it is the role in, and demands and experiences of, the moment that make everything else seem distant. In Augés words: ‘There is no room there for history unless it has been transformed into an element of spectacle, usually in allusive texts. What reigns here is actuality, the urgency of the present moment.’ (Augé 103, 104)

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This non-place raises an interesting problem for the concept of agency. When thinking about agency, we are used to seeing it as a means of having control over our actions, but even more over their outcome. If no historicity is perceived, if one only lives the present, there can be no concern for the effects of one’s actions for the long(er) term. Actions would stand alone, detached from their consequences. And if actions cannot have actual effects, there can be no responsibility for the consequences, which, as James, Sartre and Vohs and Schooler have shown, will result in immorality.

The experience of the non-place then, might have the same effects. In a situation where there is an absence of experiential agency; responsibility and morality are perceived to be non-existent. In a non-place, where there is no future and therefore no concept of the consequences of one’s actions, there is a lack of experiential agency and therefore a lack of responsibility. However, in Severin’s case we could argue that his own morality is replaced by Wanda’s rules. His “norm-producing entity” is no longer a

learned morality of society or discourses, but revolves only around the figure of Wanda. This again brings us back to the contract, and to a last insight from Augé. He notes that non-places

have the peculiarity that they are defined partly by the words and text they offer us: their ‘instructions for use’, which may be prescriptive (‘Take right-hand lane’), prohibitive (‘No smoking’) or informative (‘You are now entering the Beaujolais region’). […] This establishes the traffic conditions of spaces in which individuals are supposed to interact only with texts, whose proponents are not individuals but ‘moral entities’ or institutions’. (Augé 96)

Augé’s explanation here might seem contrary to the relationship we have been discussing by means of this contract, since it is a person (Wanda) that for Severin determines the relationship in the non-place. However, where previously we

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text. She is not an individual, but a symbol for Severin’s desires. How that works, I will discuss in relation to the last sentence of the contract.

In order for this contract to be mutual, there should be binding obligations for both parties. The last paragraph of the contract finally deals with Wanda’s obligations towards her slave:

Mme von Dunajew on her behalf agrees as his mistress to appear as often as possible in her furs, especially when she purposes some cruelty toward her slave.” (Sacher-Masoch 124)

Wanda’s concession to Severin is to wear fur as often as possible. The furs are an important element of Severin’s fantasy: it is a beautiful woman dressed in furs that he wants to be dominated by. Victor Smirnoff in his essay on masochism has made much of this element of Severin’s fantasy. According to him, a masochist desires both a harsh and evil woman and a sweet and loving one. Smirnoff: ‘it is essential that these two roles should be played by the same woman, the masochist's wife or mistress. This is where the use of dresses, uniforms and accessories is of utmost importance. They are the

indispensable means of maintaining these two images apart (from each other).’

(Smirnoff 70) Smirnoff’s analysis does find support the second part of the last sentence of the contract: that she will wear the furs especially when she purposes some cruelty toward her slave. It is during the times that she plays the role of Master that the furs are essential in order for her not to be confused with the woman who was convinced by Severin to play this role. Furthermore, it turns Wanda-as-Master into a symbol of his fantasy and with it into a text for the purposes of the non-place argument.

Though in the relationship between Severin and Wanda, he was the one in power, in the non-place that is the relationship between Gregor and his mistress, he needs to believe he is powerless, have no experiential agency. For this to be possible, the distinction symbolised by the furs is essential. Furthermore, it may indeed help her transform into the metaphorical “text” she represents in the non-place. She becomes the symbol of Severin’s fantasy, which indeed is a condition for this relationship to work. Though his formal power is still in existence, in this non-place where historicity does not play a role and identities make way for prescribed roles, Severin can have the

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experiences of Gregor, a non-agentic slave to his fur-clad mistress. After this discussion of the conditions and basic principles of Severin and Wanda’s relationship in terms of agency, let us turn to some passages that lead to the end of it.

2.2 Two Goodbyes, Three Forms of Agency

At the end of the book there is another instance where a written note features prominently. Severin here decides to set himself free after Wanda tells him she is determined to marry another man. This leads to several relevant passages in our investigations into the concept of agency. We do not learn whether she was serious about getting married or if it was a form of cruelty as part of Severin and Wanda’s agreement. The possibility of torture in being faced with a third party was indeed mentioned in the discussions leading to the signing of the contract. When Severin describes his ideal to Wanda he says: ‘[to be the slave of a woman] who fetters me and whips me, treads me underfoot, the while she gives herself to another.’ (Sacher-Masoch 62) Of course, marriage is a step further from giving oneself to another. However, there is no way to know whether Wanda is sincere or merely torturing Severin. Whilst Severin is in anguish, Wanda shows indifference:

I leaped up and snatched the poniard, which hung beside her bed, from its sheath, and placed its point against my breast.

“I shall kill myself here before your eyes,” I murmured dully.

“Do what you please,” Wanda replied with complete indifference. “But let me go to sleep.” She yawned aloud. “I am very sleepy.” (Sacher-Masoch)

Thereupon Severin decides to leave and writes Wanda a note that says:

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emotions, and played an impudent, frivolous game with me. However, as long as you were merely cruel and merciless, it was still possible for me to love you. Now you are about to become cheap. I am no longer the slave whom you can kick about and whip. You yourself have set me free, and I am leaving a woman I can only hate and despise.

Severin Kusiemski. (Sacher-Masoch 178)

When he is outside he realises he cannot leave Florence because he has no money, but he can still be a beggar. However, he still cannot leave because of his word of honor, so instead decides to kill himself. He starts contemplating his life and all the people who he has lost. Then he slips into the river to drown himself, until he sees a vision of Wanda and changes his mind again, getting out of the water and returning to the house. In the space of two pages, he has changed his mind three times. For the first time in months he is free to choose, but still finds the reasons for not choosing these options outside of himself. It is because of money that he first thinks he cannot leave – so the limits on his agency are due to the capitalist system – until he decides that he can accomplish the same thing as a beggar. Then it is his word of honor that prevents him from leaving – so his agency is limited by the values related to class – and he finds a solution in taking his life. In the end, it is the vision of Wanda that causes him to make a definitive decision. (Sacher-Masoch 179-180)

When seen in relation to the concept of agency, this passage is highly significant. The formal agency that was discussed in the previous section here is visibly at play, but does not determine Severin’s actions. Instead, the power of the structures is

acknowledged, but loopholes are found (“I can still be a beggar”, “I can still take my life”). Even though Severin’s formal agency is limited by these structures, he finds ways around these limitations. The traditional views on agency cannot get into the nuance of this process, further than seeing it as indeed a constant tension between the different structures and our protagonist’s autonomy. However, I would propose that my

distinction between different forms of agency will help clarify in a more productive way what is going on here.

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Even though Severin’s formal agency is extremely limited, in that the structural limitations do not allow him to choose the actions he wants (to go home) there still is a different form of agency at play that allows him to find these loopholes: namely

substantive agency. What I mean by this can best be exemplified by Severin’s

remembering that was bound by his word and considers taking his life to bypass this. Even though there is no clause in the contract that explicitly forbids him from taking his life, the two clauses that say he will be a slave until Wanda sets him at liberty (not allowing for another way to regain his liberty) and that he is her unrestricted property, do seem to suggest otherwise. The contract does say that Wanda can take his life, but not that he can as well. Then again, she did give him permission kill himself in the first quote of this section, though it might easily be argued that she didn’t expect him to be able to – or that she just said that out of chagrin because she wanted to sleep – and no actual permission for suicide was given.

What we have here is a complicated field of factors, and it depends on Severin’s interpretation of the commands, rules and structures whether he is allowed to kill himself or not. However, we cannot read a rational weighing of the options or a critical reflection on how the commands were meant in Severin’s considerations. Instead, he chooses how to interpret the commands through his actions themselves. Of course, we could simply deduce that this is a stylistic choice on the part of the author, to maintain the pace of the narrative (best exemplified by the fact that this whole issue of leaving, changing his mind three times, failing to kill himself and returning to Wanda only takes up two pages of this book). However, the idea that most of our decisions are made through our actions instead of resulting from a conscious process is not a new one and this is exactly what I want to get at by introducing this new form of agency.

It would be helpful here to look at the relation between substantive agency and Judith Butler’s performative agency. Butler argues that gender is established through repetition (iteration) of acts, shaped by discourse to have a certain meaning. Discursive norms thus are reproduced through an agent’s acts. However, ‘[t]he subject is not determined by the rules through which it is generated because signification is not a founding act, but rather a regulated process of repetition that both conceals itself and

Enslavement, pleasure, and other forms of agency