A menage à trois with Foucault, Maisie, and Fanny

Today we sat down with Fanny Hill and Maisie Beale to talk about their texts in light of Michel Foucault’s “The Mesh of Power.” What follows is a real, unadulterated look at the behind-the-scene dynamics in What Maisie Knew and Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.

Bethany Q & Jess K: Foucault says that “Delinquency is useful.” Discuss how you see that in your text.

Maisie B: My parents, Ida and Beale, my step parents Mrs. Beale and Sir Claude, even Mrs. Wix who claims to be wholly committed to my happiness, are ultimately driven by an intense desire to transgress societal bounds to experience bodily pleasure, both the visceral feeling of satisfied emotion and also baser pleasures that as an adolescent I still know little about. You know, Foucault says, “In any case, the politics of sex will install itself within this whole politics of life that will become so important in the 19th century” (7). My mother embodies the delinquency of extramarital sex, a taboo in the 19th century and an intricate part of why my text is so deliciously naughty; she is often in a “violent splendour...like that of some gorgeous idol described in a story-book” (53). This causes her, however, to “break out into questions as to what had passed at the other house between that horrible woman and Sir Claude” (53) among other odd behaviors, and this delinquency, her inability to extricate her emotions from her drive for pleasure, causes her to become the villain of the text. I slowly but surely lose all desire to be with her, and you, my readers, follow suit.

Fanny H: Michel talks about prostitution in his presentation, though he focuses much more on pimps than what happened on the streets and brothels of London in the 1740s. The madame or bawd was a bigger menace for women like me. Acting out delinquency allowed me to become rich. And we don’t have room here to talk about the delinquency of people who kept my banned text in print or illustrated it with such graphic images.

But delinquency also let me get revenge. Mr. H— had his way with my maid Hannah about seven months into our relationship (68). As I say in my book, “my pride alone was hurt, my heart not.” Maybe I should have made him pay for his “stooping to such a coarse morsel” financially, but I decided to pay him back in “the same coin” (70). Mr. H— had just taken Will into his service, a young country boy with eyes that were “naturally wanton” and often carried messages between the two of us (70). Lucky me Will had a “not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a may-pole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant” (72). Unluckily Mr. H— discovered us in much a similar position as I’d seen him with Hannah; even though I explained to him that it was his own behavior I’d taken as a model, he still broke off our relationship (86). So breaking the rules was useful in the short term, but had longer repercussions than I intended at the time.

JK & BQ: How does the commodification of pleasure play out in your respective texts and how does pleasure tie into your exercise of power?

Fanny H: There was Mr. Barvile who liked to be whipped and whip others; he paid me well to wield the lash and be lashed in return (143). After our time together Mrs. Cole (who ran the best, most collective-feeling, brothel in London) knew I was a girl “after her own heart, afraid of nothing” (153). Then I had clients like the old man who wanted to brush my hair and sometimes put kid gloves on my hands, but nothing else.

Pleasure’s a dangerous thing. But after toying around with women in my innocence, I knew that having a man with a “large engine” was key to my sexual and economic happiness. It’s why I was so excited when Charles came back into my life. But that’s another story.

Maisie B: It is hard for me to be completely aware of my intent, or in other words try to decipher what kind of specific pleasure I derive from being with Sir Claude. I do know that my intense desire to have Sir Claude all to myself causes me to manipulate the situation whenever I see him. Because he loves me and is also conflicted about how he loves me (am I his child? his “old woman” as he likes to call me, wise beyond my years? A commodity to use in his ongoing battle with my mother and two governesses?), I use this to my advantage. I even once thought I had won – Sir Claude and I spent the day together when he asked me to give up Mrs. Wix to live with him and Mrs. Beale, but he for a moment was clearly desirous of giving me everything I wanted in the world; namely, to be only with him. We almost left forever together for Paris, and “it was the most extraordinary thing in the world.” In that moment I had the most excruciatingly pleasurable experience when I thought I had won, and when my hopes were promptly dashed, I knew I “had fallen back to earth [and] the odd thing was that in [my] fall [my] fear too had been dashed down and broken. It was gone” (252). In that moment I gave Sir Claude an ultimatum – I would give up Mrs. Wix if he would give up Mrs. Beale. But I played my hand wrong.

BQ & JK: Foucault posits that power is a restrictive and negative force in Western society. How is power a driving force in your text? Is it a “mesh” as described by Foucault?

Maisie B: When my parents initially were divorced, I became a pawn in their quest for power over each other. Not knowing any better, I acted as a shuttle for their negativity as I relayed nasty messages to one and then the other, back and forth again and again until I became exhausted by my inability to decipher their intent. This certainly had the unintended effect of causing in me “a feeling of danger.” Desirous of control, I realized I had an “inner self” capable of “concealment” (James 13). In retrospect, I can see that my parents were trying to exercise their power over me and each other by constantly surveilling this untenable situation. I suddenly refused to facilitate this power struggle: I determined that I “would forget everything...would repeat nothing, and when, as a tribute to the successful application of [my] system [they] began to [call me] a little idiot, [I] tasted a pleasure altogether new…[I] spoiled their fun, but [I] practically added to [my] own” (13).

You also asked if it’s a mesh? Yes, absolutely, my parents were trapped in a society dictating that they love me and one another according to the ‘perfect family model,’ but my mother was never an angel. When that paradigm collapsed, I became a pawn in their army, but one who wasn’t trained and so learned to deploy my weapons with the utmost subtlety. And so, they gave up on me. Was it the right choice? I still can’t say.   

Fanny H: Power is everything. Even a hymen is powerful in my story. I pretended to be a virgin after going to Mrs. Cole’s brothel and got much more money from that night than I would if he thought I was already deflowered. That man thought that I was not touched, only pure, and got more satisfaction from the knowledge that he was ruining girls than I think he did from the actual act of penetration. How’s that for power and pleasure working together?

But those are just happy memories. The power I lacked when coming to London as a country innocent wasn’t as pleasant; it led me to accept a job with Mrs. Brown that wasn’t at all what she promised. A terrible old man paid 50 guineas to take my maidenhead but couldn’t get it up – then I ran off with Charles. So there’s obviously lots of power with sex and money in my story. At the end the fact that I’m rich allows me to marry Charles; he’d lost all his money but still had his status as a gentleman. Now we’re just a happy family with kids and I’m the picture of a virtuous wife. Even I can’t see all the strands that make up the mesh of our power.