Story of O

Despite the difference between the novel’s “official” end, where O is “possessed” by the Commander and Sir Stephen, and the second ending, where O “about to be left by Sir Stephen prefers to die” (261), both share a common theme: Namely, both endings point to death. For while only the second refers to a literal death, it seems that symbolically O’s death is prefigured by what she becomes, and how she is treated, in the first ending. This can be seen first in how she is prepared for the evening in the courtyard at the finale. O not only chooses an owl mask to cover her face, a bird associated with silence, night, and hence death, but is sent to have all her body hair removed. As O notes, this depilation complements the “Egyptian statue aspect the mask conferred upon her” (257). In this context, the process and mask resemble the preparation of a corpse for embalmment or display.

This connection with a statue or corpse continues when O reaches the courtyard itself. There, as O says, “it struck everyone as completely natural that, when questioned, this owl prove truly what it was, deaf to human speech and mute” (261). O is examined, touched, and even has her legs opened to display her irons, but she herself is totally impassive and silent. She has become a pure object of aesthetic and sexual contemplation. This stands in contrast to the couples dancing in the courtyard, who embody the physical and verbal movement, expression and interaction key to life and subjectivity. It is also something that O realizes when she wonders whether she was “a thing of stone or wax” that it was “pointless to try and speak to” (262).

As such, both endings can be viewed as a comment on the ultimate logic and outcome of masochism. In both cases, the project of submitting oneself to a master “capable of pitilessly appropriating unto himself that which he loves” (240) results in destruction. In seeking to become nothing but what the other desires, one loses oneself. In the first ending, the submissive becomes a lifeless reflection of the other’s fantasy, like a doll whose distinct identity and will has been systematically consumed and “possessed” by the master’s. In the second ending, this loss happens because of the first process. If the submissive has been reduced to a pure object, their subjectivity wholly excavated, then they no longer hold any interest to the sadist wishing to impose their will. In that case, as happens in the second ending, the master leaves the submissive for fresh, moldable, subjects. In such cases, as also happens in the second ending, the sub is left with nothing to offer but their life.

However, it is also possible to interpret these endings in less final and definitive terms. While the second does seem explicit about the link between masochism and death, the first at least holds open the possibility that life for O, and the masochist, lies beyond their own possession and objectification. Specifically, it does so for O in her role as “a procuress” (252). For as seen earlier, Jacqueline’s sister, Nathalie, is seduced by hearing about O’s relationship with Sir Stephen, and her marks. As O says, “what had revolted Jacqueline had left Nathalie wonderstruck, smitten with desire and curiosity” (233). Nathalie falls in love with the way O inspires desire in, and gives pleasure to, others, and yearns to be like her. Thus, Nathalie is easily lured to Roissy and, as O says, “it would be primarily  […] thanks to her that Nathalie would be surrendered to the corporation” (251).

In this way, O achieves meaning and life beyond the novel’s end. She does so not just as an empty or passive vessel for Sir Stephen, but rather as a “naturally trained bird of prey” (253), who assists in bringing the men at Roissy fresh prey. This is seen again with the young couple at the novel’s end. O’s stark appearance draws them in, leading the man to tell his partner, after touching the hole on her labia, that “he would have the same thing done to her” (262). As such, it is O’s objectification, and the marks of her submission, that help corrupt a new generation of men and women. Through the exotic world that her state implies, she helps reproduce the very sadomasochistic culture that created her state. Further, in this sense, O’s seduction of the couple is a metaphor for the relationship of the novel to the reader and of a broader cycle of death and rebirth. In aestheticizing the story of O’s “death” and presenting her journey in an attractive way, the novel encourages readers, as suggested with the alternate starts to the novel, to embark on similar but individual “stories of O.”