"emotion and nothing else"

Girl before a mirror, Picasso, 1932

This painting by Picasso illustrates tensions of fragmentation/wholeness and internal/external presentation of self.  I’m interested in the way in which a mirror can construct a whole/integral image despite seemingly disparate parts of that image.  Characters in Anna’s notebooks serve as mirror images for people in Anna’s life.  Although the novel seems to fight against the tendency to produce a “whole” or “integral” image of its fragmented parts, it does, nevertheless, produce “mirror” images that create illusions of wholeness in their reflections of characters.

In this case, the reflected image is the darker one—perhaps illustrating what the woman sees in herself that is not perceived by society.  This is interesting, then, in the way in which the mirror—a reflecting force that creates illusions and distorts—is also, in a sense, revealing the woman’s subconscious perceptions of self.  The mirror both creates illusions and works to reveal internal conflicts in self-identity—not unlike the way in which Anna’s writing both reflects and reveals but also undermines its author’s efforts to create an integral self.  This painting also speaks to Anna’s sexual concerns—that the clitoral orgasm is merely external or false whereas the vaginal orgasm (internal/penetrative) allows her to achieve her true self. (mirrors/writing can reflect feelings but cannot actually penetrate the self).  The clitoral orgasm is male-manipulated (mechanical) whereas the vaginal orgasm is the only “female” orgasm that produces “pure emotion”—a “dissolving in a vague, dark generalized sensation” (204).  Separate elements cannot be distinguished when dissolved, suggesting that the orgasm--true experience--is the solvent and can merge disparate substances of self.  The “sensations” and “emotions” are indistinguishable, illustrating the merging of the physical and emotional into one “true experience.”  Because it cannot be self-induced, the vaginal orgasm reveals Anna's incapability to construct a whole self.  

“‘Or perhaps you’d like a merrie England, beer, skittles, and the girls in long homespun dresses?’”

“She said, angry: ‘Of course not!  I hate all the William Morris stuff’” (180).   

This conversation between Ella and Paul is focused on Paul’s accusations of Ella’s communist leanings.  Ella refutes his association of her with William Morris, an English textile designer, artist, writer, and libertarian socialist.  Hugely influential in the arts and crafts movement, Morris was responsible for mass productions of wallpaper designs.  Morris seems to contribute to the “quiet and tame and suburban” masque of a society that is, in fact, deeply split and fractured. 

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/morris/wmbio.html

And to continue our discussion of periods . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/bodyform-feminine-hygiene_n_1970565.html