Against the Grain: Analysis of Major Characters
"Against the Grain: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the complex figure of Jean Des Esseintes, the last heir of a declining French aristocratic family. At thirty, he embodies the effects of hereditary decline, marked by physical ailments and a profound disillusionment with society. Choosing isolation, Des Esseintes curates his environment with artificial and fantastical elements, favoring man-made beauty over nature. His tastes reflect a fascination with decadence and perversion, drawing inspiration from artists and poets who subvert conventional morality, like Gustave Moreau and Charles Baudelaire. Despite his attempts to create a personal utopia, his health issues challenge his extravagant lifestyle, leading to a pivotal moment of defiance when he misinterprets his doctor's advice. Ultimately, he decides to enter a monastery, yet his reconciliation with the church is rooted in a recognition of its inherent contradictions. The narrative also touches on the influence of his parents, particularly his mother, who lived in seclusion, mirroring his own retreat from the world. Overall, this character analysis delves into themes of isolation, decadence, and the struggle against societal norms.
Against the Grain: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Joris-Karl Huysmans
First published: À rebours, 1884 (English translation, 1922)
Genre: Novel
Locale: A villa overlooking Fontenay-aux-Roses in Paris
Plot: Black humor
Time: 1880's
Jean Des Esseintes (day zeh-SAHNT), the last descendant of a family of French aristocrats that has long been in decline, having fallen prey to the hereditary enfeeblement that—according to a common belief of the nineteenth century—was brought on by continued intermarriage and love of luxury. At the age of thirty, he is anemic, “neurasthenic” (a term replaced in modern parlance by such phrases as “highly strung”), and prey to all manner of real and imaginary illnesses. He already has indulged his appetite for commonplace pleasures and ordinary vices to the limit and now desires to become a recluse, surrounding himself with the best of everything that human artifice has to offer. He intends to live in splendid isolation, and although he retains two servants to do the housework and regularly consults his doctor, he remains the only authentic character in the narrow realm of his existence. In selecting the objects with which he intends to embellish and glorify his privacy, Des Esseintes always prefers the artificial to the natural and the fantastic to the representational. He prefers hothouse flowers to those that can stand exposure to the elements, and he has a particular affection for carnivorous plants. He prefers perfumes carefully designed by human artificers; these have the capacity to induce an orgiastic ecstasy in him. His favorite painter is Gustave Moreau, who delighted in depicting exotic femmes fatales in gorgeously elaborate surroundings. His favorite poets are Charles Baudelaire, the great pioneer of what Théophile Gautier called the “Decadent style,” and Stéphane Mallarmé, who carried that style into the new era of Symbolism. Des Esseintes considers the prose poem to be the ideal literary form, but among longer prose works, he favors those that take such delight in opposing or slyly subverting common notions of propriety that they become “satanic,” like the works of Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly. Des Esseintes' own moral views are calculatedly perverse, and he is fond of arguing against every position taken for granted by conventional moralists. Although he is able to furnish his new villa according to his tastes, gradually bringing it to maturity as a utopia in miniature, Des Esseintes' pleasure in his project is undermined by the fact that his health continues to trouble him. He is warned by his doctor that continued indulgence of his luxurious tastes will kill him, but when the doctor's prescription for a dietary supplement of beef tea is mistaken for a recipe for an enema, Des Esseintes is delighted to discover yet another form of perversity: that of taking one's nourishment into the wrong end of the alimentary canal. This is, however, his last defiant attempt to go “against the grain” of convention; he accepts thereafter that he must change his habits. He decides to enter a monastery but conserves his perversity to the end in maintaining that he is reconciled to the church not because its dogmas are true but because they are so utterly and magnificently impossible.
Mme Des Esseintes, his mother, a recluse who dreads light and spends her life secluded in her darkened bedroom. She dies while her son is young.
M. Des Esseintes, Jean's father. He lives in Paris and seldom visits his wife and child. He dies while Jean is young.