The Power of the Erotic: Avis Finds Her Art

We spent a lot of time in class discussing the scene of Avis’s “awakening,” and it made me start to consider alternative/expanded readings of that textual moment. We can certainly read it as a scene of her awakening as an artist—at the end of the experience she sees the Sphinx, which becomes her lifetime masterpiece. But as I was reading, I couldn’t help but notice the sexual language, imagery, and subtext of the passage. I’d like to take a closer look at those textual elements and perhaps make some meaning of their inclusion in her “artist’s awakening.”

When Avis first decides to drink the “Eau de Fleurs d’Oranger,” it is described as an experience reserved only for women: “Leave men their carousel, their fellowship, the heart’s blood of the burning grape. In the veins of the buds that girls wear at their bridals runs a fire of flavor deep enough for us” (79-80). I immediately questioned who “us” was, and I concluded that it encompassed all women. While men are left to their carousel (competitive tournaments or conveyor belts—both are equally daft) and wine, women will find fire in the buds of flowers. Of course, Phelps specifies that it’s the flowers that women “wear at their bridal runs,” immediately linking the liquor to marital consummation and virginity. She goes on: “The wine of a flower has carried many a pretty Parisan to an intrigue or a convent. Could it carry a Yankee girl to glory?” (79-80). Given the sensual nature of the previous sentences, we could read the wine leading a girl to “intrigue or a convent” as leading a young girl to sexual adventure or pre-marital pregnancy. Or both. Either way, the final question about leading a Yankee girl to glory implies that there are other outlets for this erotic energy than sex acts, for Avis’s “glory” rests in her art.

Avis’s awakening is slow, occurring in waves. The imagery is of various mythology, people, places, and periods of history, but it’s always tempered with a description of Avis’s physical reactions. At first she’s “laughing” and “excited.” Next there is a “dull but not painful pressure set slowly in the brain,” and soon after she “felt herself spin round and round” (80). Strangely, she soon after narrates, “Nothing had happened, except that the darkness had become alive” (80). As the scene ends, she “lay back upon her pillow with a sudden, long, sobbing sigh. She was very tired, but she had seen her picture” (83). I initially thought the darkness, which came alive in this scene, was her artistic instinct but it could also be read as Avis’s sensuality. She had been cultivating her artistic abilities from a young age, so describing her artistry as “darkness” doesn’t seem representative. Given the physicality of Avis’s experience, I think we have to read the scene as grounded in the body and potentially sexual, but I’d like to offer the idea that Avis’s artistic awakening and her sexual awakening are intrinsically linked.

Even though I’m highlighting the physical/sexual elements in this scene, I don’t mean to downplay the obvious artistic benefits this awakening has in Avis’s work. In fact, I think describing the two in such complimentary terms (and so closely together, in the same scene) indicates Phelp’s feelings that these two “awakenings” are closely aligned. As she “lay back upon her pillow” with a “long, sobbing sigh” she feels as though she could work. Avis’s personal realization of her sensuality and the agency therein opened up new artistic possibilities. In “The Power of the Erotic,” Audre Lorde argues that if women (who are systematically encouraged to ignore their erotic power) could harness their erotic agency and apply it to all areas of their lives, that they would be unstoppable. Lorde is careful to emphasize that the “erotic” is not “sex,” but rather the power in recognizing one’s own sensuality and harnessing that power. In this scene, it’s clear that Avis finds and recognizes her own power, channeling it to her art. Sadly, the social systems that prevent women from ever accessing this power also prevent Avis from following her awakening to its full potential, for the scene ends with Avis sobbing “like any broken hearted women who was not going to pain a great picture tomorrow” (84).