6/26/2023 0 Comments Story of o by pauline réage![]() ![]() Speaking, saying anything – that was the difficult part. ![]() Unlike Atwood’s novel, however, the women in O are complicit in their humiliation – even if the possibility of genuine consent is nuanced throughout:Ĭonsent, O was telling herself, consent wasn’t the difficult part, and it was then she realised that neither of the men had for one instant anticipated the possibility of her not consenting neither had she. Somewhat foreshadowing Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Reage paints a world in which absolute power is enacted by men upon women. Set in 1950s Paris, O consents to become her lover Rene’s slave, and is “given” by him to be the property of another man, whom we only know as “Sir Stephen”. ![]() Story of O is quite literally the story of a young professional woman called O. It was only after the author’s death in 1998 that Pauline Reage was revealed to be Anne Desclos, whose cautiousness regarding her identity was further underscored by the fact that she had also been known as Dominique Aury. Like Fifty Shades, the book was epoch-making and like Fifty Shades, the book was published pseudonymously. In 1954, a woman using the pseudonym Pauline Reage published a slim volume bearing the title l’Histoire d’O (Story of O). Many years before the Fifty Shades franchise was conceived came its singular predecessor. ![]()
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