Self-pleasure: The Abolishment of Manmade Sin
“I go through hell and find it thrilling. I can’t get enough of this feeling of my heart pulling the trigger and shooting.”
– Eva Baltasar
Mammoth by Eva Baltasar offers the tale of queer motherhood and acceptance in the Catalonian countryside. In pursuit of raw sensual pleasure, the nameless female narrator grapples with overcoming the burden of enforced values. The narrative, pregnant with visual allegories, unveils the journey to hedonism through the abandonment of urban civilization. This paper will analyse how Mammoth uses setting and perspective to depict the obstructions preventing the experience of idyllic life.
In the fourth century BCE, Aristippus of Cyrene coined Hedonism as the pursuit of pleasure through self-indulgence. The protagonist of Mammoth implements a portion of the ideology, by indulging in short-term discomforts to then experience divine pleasures. The novella presents an observant young-adult woman who wishes to be a single mother, going as far as throwing a “fertilization party” to cement her desires in the tangible realm. Baltasar expresses the character as an independent whole in a system of subjects, all of which attempt to claim a portion of her for themselves. By acquiring control of the body, the protagonist learns to liberate herself from internalized pressure and external possession. This is first implied when she sits at the foot of the window, now shattered, due to the unexpected gusts of the “spring sun” and “suspended life” that represent a plateau. It unfolds at once the divine sovereignty of nature and a sense of discomfort following the sunny “white-hot glow” of the wild rays of fertility. The protagonist perceives the illumination as medicine, describing the outcome of the pained pleasure to be a metamorphosis of the womb into “a chapel.” The inability to sway fate frightens her as it places her life into the hands of an uncanny supernatural creator, to which all remain stranger to. The medical and religious settings distance the reader from her rationale, a method employed in Mammoth to recreate her disorientated perspective for the reader. In literature, the word “lion” is often an allegory for the relations between the self and the soul and “sundown” represents the lessons learned. In turn, it is assumed that the power of decision was in the hands of unnamed protagonist all along; her sovereignty was the epic gesture that goes unnoticed by the mind. At first learned helplessness disenfranchised her quest for a child – an objective inconceivable through masturbation – by desperately forcing sensations of pleasure in hopes of overcoming her defeats. The “zoo” is an allegory for the savage society that forces woman to surrender to an altruistic life, promising them rewards capable of turning skin “golden” before compelling them to indulge in manmade sin. An epiphany shifts the tone of the narrator to underline the capitalistic experience she has escaped, no longer a prisoner of the system: “singing of caged birds lulled me to sleep.” By fleeing the urban lifestyle and relocating to the countryside she now reclaims authority over her body by “roaring” and surrendering to the pleasures of the human experience. At that moment, liberation from social standards tasted sweeter than the hypnotic rays of the sweaty – sexy – sun.
The narrative of Mammoth unearths a message: nothing is yours, except for you. Through setting and perspective, the reader explores the implications of female societal ideals, such as childbirth and self-pleasure, in the absence of a partner. The protagonist learns to reclaim her power by surrendering to nature, accepting societal standards, and constructing a novel outlook on the purpose of her existence. In turn she claims an abstract hedonistic structure; by finding beauty in the dullness of her mundane countryside.
EXCERPT
On the day I planned to get pregnant, I turned twenty-four and threw a birthday party that was actually a fertilization party in disguise. My flatmates helped. They called their friends and acquaintances, and I asked my friends to bring acquaintances of their own. The more the merrier. I needed bodies. To gather a crowd, the kind of horde where epic gestures go unnoticed. I wanted to be a single mother, for no father to claim his share. It was April, and the spring sun shattered the window with a strong gust of suspended life. That white-hot glow made me feel fertile. I downed it like medicine, trusting in it and its power to transform my womb into a chapel. After lunch I would lie on the futon in my bedroom, head against the window that faces the zoo, and surrender to the light that turned my skin golden, my arm hair the color of wheat, my legs dissolute and slack. I masturbated in the sun while longing for a child. The singing of caged birds lulled me to sleep, and I woke around sundown, when the smooth quiet formed a slope down which the lions’ ancient, roaring sorrows would soon roll.
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