One of the beguiling features of this text is that it not only goes to New
Orleans back in 1731. That's really impressive, Prévost had
never been there, but he had friends who had.
It also flirts with a happy ending, because momentous things happen in New
Orleans. I think that the American reader is a bit
surprised at the description of New Orleans as we first encounter it.
We discovered with surprise what up to then we had heard praised as a fine
city was merely a collection of miserable hovels inhabited by 500 or 600 souls.
So, it looks like a poor, sparse, unimpressive place,
primitive place. And yet it seems to be the place where
some kind of spiritual renewal is going to happen.
That Manon, who has been motivated, fueled by looking out for herself, but also by
having a kind of a taste for pleasure that could not be overcome.
Earlier in the book des Grieux had said, you know, we might leave Paris.
And she makes it quite clear to him that she doesn't want to leave Paris, that
Paris gratifies her, and there is a fine sense in which she is
really the makings of a new kind of character,
for whom city life and its charms, the metropolitian culture is dazzling, is
irresistible, is necessary. So she needs things.
She's not exactly greedy but she needs things.
She needs theater, she needs to be stimulated.
There really is an argument for cultural itself in this book.
And yet they end up in New Orleans which would appear to be the last possible
place for happiness to occur, but it does.
And it does because it's the trip across the ocean and arriving at this place of
hovels that you realize is that the riches that she truly has are really in the
love of des Grieux for her. He feels the same way.
He's felt that way all along. He says to her, you are a wonderful
alchemist, you change everything into gold.
It's a very, I think, significant metaphor.
You are a wonderful alchemist, you change everything into gold, and listen to her
reply. Then you, she says to him, will be the
richest person in the universe, for if there has never been a love like yours,
it is equally impossible to be loved more tenderly than you are.
I know what I am, and I know full well that I have never been worthy of the
wonderful affection you have for me. I have hurt you,
in ways you could have never forgiven, but for your unfailing goodness.
I have been frivolous and fickle, and even while loving you passionately, as I
have always done, I have never been anything, but graceless.
You cannot imagine how I have changed. And so, what we really have is the
transformation of love into something like money, alchemist, love into gold.
You certainly see that this was precisely their dilemma.
They had plenty of love but not funds, no money.
Is it really possible that at the novel's end, love itself could be at least
figuratively converted into riches. And all of this, I think, is actually
linked to a discourse about America. des Grieux.
New Orleans is the place to come to, I often said to Manon.
If you want to taste the true sweetness of love.
Here love is free of self interest, from jealousy, and inconstancy.
Our fellow countrymen come here in search of gold,
he's thinking about the entire colonial project.
Little did they imagine that we found far more priceless treasures and so all of
this, which is really betokens a kind of enlargement of heart on the part of
Manon, who recognizes the errors of her ways, who understands.
Here we're beginning to see something that we might call mutuality instead of
two separate divided consciousnesses. And so they take the step that everything
in their background, each of their backgrounds, primes them to
do. They have lied to the forces that be in
New Orleans, and to the captain on board the boat, when they are crossing over to
New Orleans. Lied by telling them that they are
married, by telling everyone that they are married, which is what enables them
to live together. They, of course, know that they're not
married. And so once again, I want you to hear the
image of America, the image of a kind of wealth that is not that of gold, and the
image of spirit, virtue and morality, which is making a return into this
book. We are both too sound in heart and soul
to go on living in defiance of our duty, he tells Manon.
It's true we did so in France, where it was equally impossible for us to give up
loving each other and to satisfy our love in a lawful way.
In other words, marriage was not possible there.
But here, in America, with nobody to depend on but ourselves,
and no further obligation to observe the arbitrary laws of social standing, and
public opinion, where indeed we are thought to be
married, what is there to prevent our being so in
fact, and purifying our love by the vows
authorized by the church? And so, they propose to be married.
They explain the truth of the situation that they're not.
They both feel consecrated, that this will be the final right
turn in their tempestuous relationship. It will be consecrated and of course this
creates tragedy. That Manon who is beautiful, that when
the governor of the New Orleans colony realizes that this attractive
couple is not married, he realizes, and they have a shortage of women there.
He realizes that he can possess Manon, not for himself but for his nephew.
That she is now disposable, we're right back to the market place model,
that the woman is nothing but a body. That can be bought and sold?
That she can be commoditized? And so, by telling the forces that be in
New Orleans that they want to get married, what they do is open the door to
horror. The marriage request will
be denied, and it is explained that she will now be instead given to the
governor's nephew. This is what triggers the tragic end of
the story. Des Grieux has a sword fight with the
nephew. He thinks that he has killed him.
And it's in response to that, that the couple leaves New Orleans, moves into the
wilderness. In scenes that I've described and that
ultimately Manon dies. Later it will be found out that the
nephew did not die. Des Grieux stays on for quite some time.
And he is destroyed, distraught by the death of Manon.
Eventually, he makes his way back. to France.
But what is one to make of the twisting of this plot?
That when the lovers seek the approval of society and the church, they are once
again separated and punished. It's as if it's catch 22, whichever way
you go, there will be trouble, you will be punished.
New Orleans is as corrupt as Paris. Lovers have no better opportunities there
than they did in Paris. It's his third book about the waveredness
of human emotions. It's as if you feel with the intensity of
these characters, there is no social arrangement
that can either ratify your feelings or give you any sense of security.
Passion leads astray. I think it's one of the darker sort of
views of this book. And if you see it that way you can see
that this book really takes a kind of almost circular, in-the-round picture of
human emotions driving people. Because even the character of Tiberge,
whom I've mentioned a few times as the very spiritual, decent, not very moneyed
friend of des Grieux, who was in the church, who tries to salvage des Grieux's
life according to the church. Des Grieux constantly exploits Tiberge.
Why does Tiberge stay in the mix? It's because he was utterly devoted,
almost with a kind of passion to des Grieux, to the tune even that, at novel's
end, when he knows that des Grieux and Manon have been shipped to New Orleans,
he decides to follow them. It has a classic sort of 18th century
picturesque turn of events, that the boat that he's on, where he
wants to go, and find them so he can help des Grieux, that boat is taken over by
pirates. He spends time with pirates, he finally
gets to des Grieux, and the two are reunited, at this point,
Manon is dead. But it, and so we can read this as a kind
of tribute to this lovely friendship, that Tiberge has for des Grieux.
Or, cynical that we may be, or as we may be, we can step back and say, you know,
isn't the pursuit of des Grieux by Tiberge in some ways an analog to the
pursuit of Manon by des Grieux. It's as if in Prévost's world all of these
characters are driven by desire. It's not, at least I think not, sexual
desire. It's a desire to save the soul of des
Grieux, and yet we see it trumping all other decisions.
We see Tiberge as driven in his own way, I think, as des Grieux is.
Well, how do you exit this story? You exit this story feeling like the dark
ending, the punishment meted out to this couple at the end when they are ready to
turn the page when Manon's heart grows larger and she recognizes all of the
travails that she has put her lover through.
Do you feel like this is a punitive story that really wants to nail down passion,
nail it down in the sense, not just of depicting it, but to give it it's proper
punishment. I don't know.
I don't think there's any definitive answer for that.
But the last point that I would leave you with is to ponder the very nature of
storytelling as it is enacted in this short novel.
As I said, it's all a narration by des Grieux, the hungry lover.
And for the most part it's a narration that is filled with the troubles that he
has, the troubles that loving Manon Lescaut
brings to him. It's filled, I think, with evidence that
loving someone by no means guarantees that you can possess them or control
them. That's what this plot demonstrates so
broadly. And I put it that way to suggest to you
that when the story starts, Manon is dead,
des Grieux is telling this story. And, I'm suggesting to you, that by
telling the story of his faithful love-affair with Manon Lescaut, Des
Grieux is in some peculiar way possessing her through language,
through the story in a way that he could not in life, and through his experience.
It's as if story telling gave us a kind of control over events that in real life
events had over us. It's as if storytelling is in its own
way muscular and a source of authority and a trump card for getting in control.