Miracle of the Rose: Analysis of Major Characters
"Miracle of the Rose" is a literary exploration of complex relationships and identities within the confines of a prison setting, primarily focusing on the narrator, Jean Genet, and the significant characters surrounding him. Genet, a lifelong inmate and a self-proclaimed outcast, grapples with his identity and desires while idolizing figures like Harcamone, a rapist-murderer whose fate and beauty haunt him. Bulkaen, a strikingly beautiful and manipulative inmate, becomes the object of Genet's longing, intertwining their fates in ways that reveal the depths of Genet's emotional turmoil and desire for connection. Other characters, such as the bisexual Divers and the violent Botchako, contribute to the exploration of masculinity, power dynamics, and the search for intimacy in a harsh environment. Each character embodies distinct traits and struggles, reflecting themes of betrayal, jealousy, and the pursuit of spiritual and physical fulfillment. Together, these interwoven narratives challenge conventional morality and highlight the profound impacts of confinement on human relationships. This analysis provides insight into how each character shapes Genet's experiences and understanding of love, loss, and identity amidst the backdrop of incarceration.
Miracle of the Rose: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Jean Genet
First published: Miracle de la rose, 1946; revised, 1951 (English translation, 1966)
Genre: Novel
Locale: A boys' reformatory at Mettray and the Fontevrault Prison
Plot: Psychological
Time: Approximately the first thirty years of the narrator's life
Jean Genet (zhahn zheh-NAY), a defensive, thirty-year-old Fontevrault “lifer” with repeated burglary convictions who sees himself as a character in a dream, a living skeleton, and a dead man irrevocably locked within the restrictions of prison life. In his inverted moral order, he covets infamous acts of brutality so that he can attain the spiritual heights of Harcamone, a rapist-murderer, and thus achieve his own death by decapitation as the epitome of beauty. The thin, lightly muscled, slow-moving narrator masks his fears by assuming an offensive, angry posture and consciously appears humorless to avoid losing control of himself through laughter. First entering Mettray for having stabbed out the eye of a child, Genet idolizes “big shots” who have descended further than he. At Fontevrault, Genet reveres both Harcamone, a God figure, and Bulkaen, the hand of God. The narrator's violent, repressed desires find sexual outlets in his memories of thievery, his fantasies, his eruptive attacks, and his need to participate in other inmates' orgasms.
Bulkaen (bewl-KAN), also known as Robert, Pierrot (pyeh-ROH), Jewel, and Rocky's girl, a twenty-two-year-old, green-eyed, blond, tattooed Fontevrault inmate who is the immediate sexual and spiritual focus of the narrator's longing. A proud, icy, vindictive thief who disguises the anguish of feeling abandoned with lies and manipulations, Bulkaen both inspires the narrator to passion and, according to Genet, shatters his life. Although he initiates contact, Pier-rot contemptuously rejects the narrator's first advances but eventually allows Genet to kiss him and becomes his “kid.” As the instrument of God, Bulkaen reveals the narrator's fate. After his death, he is internalized by Genet as the priest who aids the narrator's psychic support of Harcamone.
Harcamone (ahr-kah-MUHN), a rapist-murderer who escapes life imprisonment by severing the carotid artery of the least offensive prison guard and being sentenced to the guillotine. He has achieved the pinnacle of glory to the narrator and is the source of the miracles Genet witnesses. Harcamone is a small-boned and impassive, but mournful, celibate. He has transcended his slight foreign accent, his limp, and his hand wrapped in white gauze. He is the distant, haunting focus of Genet's attention, the illumined superbeing that the narrator aspires to be but believes that he cannot be. Harcamone's concentration is on his impending death.
Divers (dee-VEHR), also called Riton-la-Noie (ree-TOHNlah-NWAH), who is eight years older than the narrator and a bisexual “big shot.” He “marries” Genet at Mettray and consummates the marriage fifteen years later at Fontevrault. Although top-heavy with well-developed shoulders, Divers appears physically proportionate because of his graceful carriage. Divers, who is syphilitic, masks a profound internal despair with audacity and shiftiness. As a Fontevrault trusty, Divers enjoys prison routine and manipulates within the system. The narrator holds Divers responsible for Harcamone's execution because he is the informant whose information led to Harcamone's fourth conviction.
Botchako (boht-shah-KOH), also called the Bandit, an epileptic who is known as the prison's worst bully. He is Bulkaen's lover and has a boxer's physique, deep-set eyes, and a hoarse voice. He is so filled with repressed rage that once he initiates a physical assault, he is unable to stop the attack. Botchako's intimacy with Bulkaen arouses the narrator's jealousy and increases the passion in his sexual relationship with Divers. The Bandit offers the narrator his friendship; he is humiliated, however, by the narrator's rejection, for which Genet feels continual guilt. Botchako cuts the trapdoor through which he and Bulkaen attempt escape. As a result, Bulkaen is machine-gunned to death immediately, and Botchako dies three days later. To the narrator, Botchako has both prevented his sexual fulfillment with Bulkaen and activated their spiritual union.
Villeroy (veel-RWAH), a blond man two years older than the narrator, a murderer (patricide) who is second-in-command of Mettray's Family B and Genet's “big shot.” By creating a trapdoor in the dormitory so that he can meet his lover outside the reformatory, returning hours later to the narrator's bed, Villeroy catalyzes in Genet his initial awareness of a continuum of male intimacy and of his place in that continuum. Villeroy is transferred to another Mettray Family after he kicks to death the head of Family B.
Rocky, also called René (reh-NAY), a Fontevrault infirmary attendant, Bulkaen's former partner in burglary and his current “big shot.” Tall and strong, Rocky does not outwardly evidence either his caring for Bulkaen or his hurt at the narrator's rejection of his offer to share a cigarette butt, an offer of friendship. He is a pragmatist whom the narrator bribes for phenobarbital so that he can become closer to Bulkaen through the disciplinary cell. Rocky's departure is the stimulus for Bulkaen to request that the narrator write him a love poem.
Van Roy, a bully and traitor who buys the narrator from Villeroy for three months' cheese ration and one month later gives him to Divers. He arranges the Mettray “big shot” humiliation of Bulkaen that the narrator later accepts as a means to descend closer to Harcamone. Van Roy receives an early discharge from Mettray by betraying the escape plans of his fellow “big shots.”