In the scene
where She unveils before Holly, as observer he appears to be in a superior
position to the passive object of his gaze. Frederic Jameson describes the
act of perception as the primary agency of violence; with our eyes, we shape,
confine, and categorize what we see.
Holly describes the sight of She's naked form and moving slowly up She's
body, he remarks on each contour and curve. This description replicates
the imperialist gaze of explorers, who map and record conquered territories
while assuming they are the central point of perception.
However, Holly's position of power is undercut since
he views only what She has allowed him to see. The object of the gaze is not
passive and Holly is aware, that unlike the explorers who colonized foreign
lands, he is unable to possess her. She's veil also symbolically undercuts
the observer's centrality since, although the veil allows the observer to
imagine what lies beneath, it also allows She to observe while not being
observed herself. As Stott discusses in Femme Fatale, the veil is symbolic of the
West's projection of the exotic and sexual onto the prohibited 'other'.
She's normal garb, a gauze wrap, prevents Holly from being able to see She's
beautiful form, although throughout the novel the gauze suggests that form
in the way it clings to She's physique. The difficulty the gauze presents
for those attempting to accurately map She's form is tied to the threat
She presents when naked. Holly's can negotiate neither, so clouded is his
judgment by sexual desire. A second parallel can be drawn with the imperialist
act of mapping and colonizing land. How accurate is the colonizer's gaze
when clouded by the objectives of control and possession? She, who does
not fulfil the position of passive object, undermines Holly's imperial gaze.
The scene of She's final destruction emphasizes the
return of Holly's central role as a powerful observer. The scene clearly
presents the explorers' voyeuristic gaze; indeed, the chapter itself is
entitled 'What We Saw" and in the text, the imperative order "Look" is repeated
six times in succession (293). Naked in the flame, She's body is clearly
outlined and described and shaped by the explorers' gaze. She is reduced,
both by her nudity and her inability to control the events that occur, to
a passive object. Notably one of the senses She loses during her slow and
humiliating death is her sight. With She blinded, it is the explorers who
occupy the central role as viewers and hence recorders.
At the end of She's devolution, her skin is described
by Holly as resembling old "parchment"(295). Holly's descriptions of She's
destruction emphasize his role as narrator of the text; throughout the novel
Holly has controlled how events are recorded and ultimately how the reader
perceives them
.
The lengthy description of She's death, foregrounding her shame and humiliation,
echoes Holly's earlier debasement before She. She's destruction reaffirms
the roles of Leo and Holly as central and superior to the Other who threatens
Britain's Empire from the peripheries. The explorers each take a lock of
She's hair and are finally able to possess She
.
R. Chow, 'Where Have all the Natives gone?'
in A. Bramner (Ed.)
Displacements (IndianapolisIndiana
University Press, 1994), p.126.
M. Pratt, 'Conventions of Representation: Where Discourse and Ideology Meet'
in W. Van Peer (Ed.)
The Taming of the Text (London: Routledge, 1988), p.27.
Stott,
Femme Fatale, p.35.
D. Karlin (Ed.)
She, pp. xxiv-xxxi.
The explorers' final act of controlling She is undercut by the fact Haggard
wrote a sequel to
She. The act
of taking a lock of hair is thus reduced to an empty gesture. Obvious parallels
can be drawn with Britain's attempts to colonize and control other lands.