Beyond the Margins of Marriage in Exiles and Giacomo Joyce

Abstract

The story of the Parnells casts the adulterous liaison as a site where the two understand the alterity of the other: “a relationship,” Levinas writes, “whose positivity comes from remoteness, from separation, for it nourishes itself, one might say, with its hunger…. Desire is desire for the absolutely other” (Totality 34). Removed from the conventions of marriage and its regulation of erotic desire, the adulterous pair constructs a world wherein each is transcendent to the other. Our next concern, though, must be what happens when a marriage itself is impacted by the adulterous impulse. Joyce seems to be continually interested in what it looks like to recognize that the person you love might want another. On the simplest level, one asks: what does one do? How does one respond? Let’s stop being philosophical for a moment and ponder the most basic question: the person you love desires somebody else. What do you do? Do you get jealous? Do you get excited? Do you want to lock your beloved up in a closet? Do you want to watch? Do you say no? Do you say yes?

We have never yet seen each other. Only written.

—Derrida 68