Supermale (novel)

The Supermale (French: Le Surmâle, roman moderne) is a 1902 novel by the French writer Alfred Jarry.^[1] Its irreverent and darkly humorous storyline involves elements of science fiction. It features a race between a train and a team of cyclists fuelled by "perpetual-motion food", and the exploits of a "supermale" capable of prodigious feats of endurance and sexual athleticism. It was Jarry's last novel.

Translated into English by Barbara Wright in 1968.

Plot

Chapter 1: The Highest Bidder The story of the Supermale starts off at Andre Marcueil’s (the main character) mansion. There are several guest at this dinner party and the main topic of discussion is what is love? Characters such as Arthur Gough, William Elson, Dr. Bathybius, and the host, Andre, are able to come up with four answers to define love. First, love is thought to be a sentiment which is equivalent to emotion. Next, love is thought to be an impression on the soul. Another idea is that love is an enfeebled sensation. Finally, the last theory, which Andre tries to prove, is that love is an attenuated act (something you do).

Chapter 2: His Heart Was Neither On The Right Nor On The Left Taking a break from the dinner party, the story goes into a flashback of Andre’s childhood. Here, the idea of the Supermale is introduced. Alfred was 10 years old and very repressed. He went to a trailer and the suit did not fit and he began to confuse his penis with his heart since he claimed to have never seen his body before. To fix this problem, Andre begins to bind and exhaust himself with bromide and exercise to become super strong and begin the process of becoming the Supermale

Chapter 3: It’s A Female, But A Very Strong One As we return to the dinner party, the discussion becomes more vulgaris because the women are now excluded. They begin to talk about the records of how many times a person can have sex in one day. They go on to saying that right now, an Indian has the record. Furthermore, Andre tries to show his super strength by breaking the arms of a dynamometer.

Chapter 4: A Little Slip Of A Girl As the dinner party finishes up, the text begins to focus on Andre and Ellen. There conversation is very sexual and Ellen says how she likes his roses on his property. As soon as she leaves, he orders his servant to cut all the roses.

Chapter 5: The Ten-Thousand-Mile Race Moving along, the story switches to the 10,000 mile race. A 5-person bicycle is racing beside a train full of spectators, which includes Ellen. This is because of the Perpetual Motion Food is giving them the endurance and strength to keep up with a train. As they race, one of the cyclist die but the bicycle only speeds up. All the cyclist notice a mysterious shadow in the background and then it surpassed them. The cyclist ended up finishing a day and a half before schedule and rather than finding cheering fans, they found roses at the finish line.

Chapter 6: The Alibi Another dinner party occurs at Andre’s mansion. The police showed up at the mansion and announce that they have found a girl died because of rape on Andre’s estate, but the matter is taken very lightly. At this point, Andre lost his image as being a hero as he was the one who raped the girl to see how many times she will be able to last. As the dinner party continues on, Andre disappears and returns as the “Indian”.In this entire chapter the “Indian” was anticipated to come, as his arrival was the entire point of the second party that was thrown. After the policeman showed up he claimed that a girl had been raped to death 6 days ago, which was the beginning of the race. As the policeman interrogated Andre about the rape murder, Andre embarrassed the policeman.When the Indian came he was a quiet and athletic looking man. He was extremely handsome and did not speak as he was continuously eating. At the end of the chapter 7 women entered Andre’s house.

Chapter 7: Ladies Only The 7 prostitutes begin to roam the halls of the mansion and find themselves in a room. While in there, they heard mysterious footsteps and began to assume it was the “Indian” coming for them. However instead, they are locked in the room. They remained trapped in that room for many hours and begin to eat their cosmetic products for satisfy their appetite.

Chapter 8: The Ovum Bathybius is in the studies room, further observing the two. He returns to his notes to find something unusual that he had written down and then begins to delve and question the potential of God compared to Man.

Chapter 9: The Indian So Celebrated By Theophrastus The “Indian” (otherwise known as Andre) meets up with Ellen (disguised) in the room where they will conduct the marathon. Ellen reveals to Andre that he had locked up the 7 prostitutes in a room to prevent interference, insisting that she is “seven women” They begin the experiment (with Bathybius observing and keeping count in a nearby room) and finishes, “breaking” the record with 82 versus 70, the previous record of love making.

Chapter 10: Who Art Thou, Human Creature During one of their breaks, Ellen falls asleep and Bathybius enters the room. Andre (disguised as the Indian) greets him with the phrase “Who art thou, human creature?” The galleries are later swarmed with people.

Chapter 11: And More The “Indian” is carried off to where the people are and they began to speculate that he can repopulate hundreds of them, producing offspring of supreme qualities.However, the “Indian” reveals to him that he is sterile and can not reproduce, much to the dismay of the crowd. He later returns to the room where Ellen is slumbering.

Chapter 12: O Sweetest Nightingale The prostitutes manage to break the glass window in the room they were locked and causes a commotion in an attempt to get Andre’s attention. He gets irritated by this and uses phonograph to drown them out. They continue while Bathybius observes them from another room.

Chapter 13: The Discovery Of Woman Andre later realizes that his theory about love was wrong: sex is not equivalent to love, seeing how he has not fallen for Ellen. After seeing Ellen without her mask on appears to be dead, although she was actually asleep, he composes a poem for her about Helen of Troy and the carnage she caused. He soon falls into deep slumber, mumbling the words “I adore her”.

Chapter 14: The Love Machine Much, it is revealed to everyone that Andre Marcueil is the Indian and William Elson is convinced that Andre must love Ellen. It was devised that a Love Machine must be made (similar to that of an electric chair) in order to force Andre to love Ellen. While Andre was still faint from the sex marathon, he was strapped to the Love Machine. He was later awaken when 11,000 volts was sent through his body, causing him to break free from his chair and attempt to escape. Alas, he dies from the results of the experiment and is literally merged to the front gate. The novel beings to close as It is later revealed that Ellen has gotten over Andre and has married, under the condition the man knows how to contain his love within human capacities.

Characters

Andre Marcueil - The "Supermale" of the novel. His various exploits are alluded to via 3rd person narration. In the beginning, we view Marcueil as a misunderstood, psychologically scarred man with supernatural abilities. However, after the death of the little girl found on Lurance grounds, it is shown that Marcueil is as callous and inhuman as can be and cares for nothing more than defeating the record of the The Indian. Throughout the novel, it becomes evident that Marcueil constantly seeks to push human boundaries.^[2] He is so unsatisfied with life, because everyone around him cannot live up to his potential of extremity. This attempt to be as superhuman as possible ultimately leads to his death.

The Indian - Andre's alter ego. When Andre sets out to prove that he can break the record, he disguises himself as an Indian, complete with tomahawk and makeup, so that he cannot be recognized by those observing his experiment.He is a very handsome and athletic looking man. He was extremely quiet and that expanded his essence of mystery.

Ellen Elson - The woman Andre falls in love with, but does not realize until he thinks she is dead. She also breaks the Indian's record as well as Andre's record. She is described as a young American woman who is a virgin, but whose exact age is unknown.

William Elson - An American chemist, he is the father of Ellen. He is the orchestrator of the Ten-Thousand Mile Race and creator of "Perpetual Motion Food." Elson makes Andre sit in the machine of love at the end of the story, which leads to Andre's death.

Arthur Gough - "The millionaire engineer, electrical expert, and manufacturer of automobiles and aircraft." Gough develops the high-speed train that races against the five-man bicycle team in the Ten-Thousand Mile Race.

Mrs. Gough - Arthur Gough's wife.

Senator de Saint-Jurieu - An aging aristocrat who attends Andre's dinner party in the first chapter and the "experiment" later on. A minor character.

Pusice-Euprepie de Saint-Jurieu - The Senator's wife.

Cardinal Romuald - A minor character who only appears in the novel as a guest at Andre's dinner party in the first chapter.

Doctor Bathybius - Andre's adversary. Bathybius revolves everything around medicine/science. When asked about love, he described it as a biochemical reaction. His reason for disliking Marcueil derives from his failure to understand him. Bathybius cannot comprehend Marcueil's extreme physique and stamina. Marcueil is outside the realms of scientific knowledge, and this makes Bathybius uncomfortable. Along with Arthur Gough - an engineer - and William Elson - a chemist - Bathybius decided to use "The Machine-to-Inspire-Love" to make Marcueil acquire sentiments towards Ellen. Through this act it is understood that when Bathybius' science fails to explain something, it must then be fixed to his liking; analogous to the way he attempted to fix Marcueil.

General Sider - A guest at Andre's dinner party in the first chapter and the "experiment" later on. The general is presented as somewhat naive and oblivious. In the third chapter, he witnesses Andre's strength as Andre breaks the dynamometer but doesn't think anything of it; he assumes the machine was worn out. The general seems to be something of a comic foil to Andre.

Ted Oxborrow - A member of the five-man bicycle team in the Ten-Thousand Mile Race. The account of the race given in the novel is from Ted's perspective in the form of a newspaper article.

Jewey Jacobs - A member of the five-man bicycle team in the Ten-Thousand Mile Race. Jewey Jacobs dies during the race, presumably from the "Perpetual Motion Food," but must continue to race despite his death. During this time it is said that he performed better than he ever had while he was alive.

George Webb - A member of the five-man bicycle team in the Ten-Thousand Mile Race

Sammy White - A member of the five-man bicycle team in the Ten-Thousand Mile Race

Bill Gilbey - Leader of the five-man bicycle team who is jokingly called "Corporal" by the other team members

Bob Rumble - A little person who rides behind the five-man bicycle team in a trailer attached to the bicycle who controls traction on the rear wheel with his weight.

Mr. Mathieu - The gamekeeper of Lurance. Mathieu only appears in the novel briefly when Andre is being questioned by the police, but he never says anything before being dismissed.

Henriette Cyne - A famous actress, she is present at Chapter 1's dinner party and adds in snide, childish humor periodically during the discussion. She is otherwise not a major character.

Blanche, Adele, Eupure, Herminie, Irene, Modeste, and Virginie - These seven ladies were prostitutes. Once they saw The "Indian", they were immediately intrigued by his physique. The seven ladies had a desire to make love to him; instead, the "Indian" locked them up in a room for hours. This caused them to grow desperate. In the midst of their despair, they engaged in an orgy among themselves and began to eat their makeup. They later escaped and found themselves in the room where Ellen and the "Indian" were performing coitus. In order to drown out their voices, Marcueil played a phonograph.

Setting

A large part of the book takes place on Andre Marcueil's estate, Chateau de Lurance. It is set in the 1920s, which was the near future at the time the book was being written in 1902.

Symbolism

Jarry utilized symbolism in his provocative work to deliver ideas that would otherwise be too obscure to understand. He puts the ideas into a novel that can be seen as darkly humorous, so as to attract readers that would otherwise not give the topic a second glance. The symbols that are expressed in the novel include, but are not limited to:

Man as a Machine

The idea of man as machine is present throughout the book, but especially in the latter half. Andre constantly seeks to prove he is more than human, that his capabilities are supernatural. He first does this in the ten-thousand-mile race in Chapter 5. The five-man bicycle itself operates like a machine, including the men riding it. Even Jewey Jacobs dying doesn’t stop the machine. They do not consider his death in an emotional way, but instead in a practical way. They need to finish the race, and he is a part of the machine. There is a level of detachedness. Andre too is like a machine in the race, because no human should be able to do what he does, including beating out the train, an actual machine. In Chapter 9 as well Andre displays man as machine, in beating the Indian’s record. He is very straightforward and mechanical about it, merely trying to achieve the result he wants. Chapter 14, which is title “The Love Machine”, also displays man as machine. He is hooked up to the love machine, only to reverse the current of the machine because his own current was stronger. Andre was more than machine in that moment. It is as much a testament to the mechanical age they were living in, as to the superhuman abilities of Andre.

Experience at the Tailor:

-Unsightly Bulge- Andre sees the bulge at the tailor and thinks that it is actually his heart. This is a symbol of how love is a physical act, which is a theme explored throughout the rest of the book.

-Jarry's Interpretation of this Bulge- This is a pivotal point in the novel as it can be seen as the creation of the Super Male. Since Andre thinks that he has a problem with his heart and he wants to enter the army, he decides that he will do everything in his power to fix his "heart." What ensues instead is becoming the Super Male.

-Extreme Workout and Training

Meeting Between Andre and Ellen

-Ellen's Algal Dress—This represents the fact that while people may be people, they are still of the earth, and they still have limitations that are defined in Earth's parameters.

The RACE

-The bicycle people—The bike people symbolize the unlimited potential of human abilities. It shows that with a little bit of help, humans are unbeatable, especially not by a machine.

-The Death on the Bike—This is a symbol to explain why humans are just so unbeatable. It is because when people get together they are able to work in a unit. When they are working as a team, nothing should be able to separate them, not even DEATH.

-Andre's Superhuman Abilities—His superhuman capabilities represents a false male fantasy.^[3] Throughout this novel, he continuously tries to push the limitations of man. However, the main point of the novel is about love. His power is not where he wants to take pride in but rather his ability to love. But once he realizes the truth, he realizes how wrong he was about what he felt love was.

-The train—The train symbolizes the advancement of technology, and its unlimited potential, because the train travels 10,000 miles in an inconceivably short amount of time.

-The Roses—Roses have been consistently representative of the word lust. Marcueil’s goal was not to prove his manliness through an already incredible 10,000 mile race but rather through record breaking times of having sex. The fact they were at the finish line of the race proves that that’s Marcueil’s ulterior goal

Andre's Coitus

-The Rape and Killing—This represents the repercussions that can occur from the pleasuring of oneself.

-The Prostitutes—This is linked back to The Rape and Killing of the little girl. Because of his sexual power, Marcueil determines that normal woman are only capable of having sex 10 times so he needs 7 to break the record. Tying this in, the prostitutes represent human limitation in a way

-Andre vs Ellen

-The Breaking of the Record—The Breaking of the Record: The record is simply another boundary that exists for humans. By breaking the record, Andre and Ellen had set the bar higher.

Andre’s Second Coitus

-Phonograph: The phonograph represents tragedy in a sense as it was used to foreshadow the death of Andre and the fake death of Ellen, and Andre’s realization of the true meaning of love. The song that was being played called for a grievous news called love, which was brought by a rose who is Ellen.

Final Scene

-Love Machine: Represents the danger of technology. Technology in some ways strips humanity of itself, and in this instance, Marcueil’s life was stripped away. Love is not supposed to be something that can be induced scientifically

Love

Another recurring symbol in Jarry's novel is love. Marcueil's view on love is explained through one of the novels' most resonating quotes: "The act of love is of no importance, since it can be performed indefinitely." Due to the nature of Marcueil's character and how he is the Supermale (which means of course that he has super human strength and energy) he implies through this sentence that love and sex are exactly the same thing. Since Marcueil sees the world from a pataphysical point of view, to him if two things share the same meaning they are exactly the same thing; since love for Marcueil is the actions that one performs in the world and making love is an action performed in the world, that would result in love and making love to be the same thing.

Editions

• First published by Editions de la Revue Blanche, Paris, in 1902.
• Published in France by Fasquelle in 1945.
• Published in France by Les Mille Et Une Nuits in 1997.
• In English: The Supermale, A Modern Novel, translated by B. Wright, published by Jonathan Cape in 1968.
• In English: The Supermale (trans. Barbara Wright), Exact Change, 1999. ISBN 1-878972-25-1*
• In Norwegian: "Overhannen", translated by Madeleine Gedde Metz, published by Fashion Moves Literature in 2014.

See also

• 1902 in literature
• 20th-century French literature

References