Still Alive: Tableau Vivant and Narrative Suspension in Sacher-Masoch’s Venus im Pelz

Abstract

Masochism, as Gilles Deleuze observes, with its focus on static, frozen poses functions like the tableau vivant — that nineteenth century parlor game in which performers impersonate works of visual art. Sacher-Masoch’s deployment of the tableau vivant in Venus im Pelz, as this article proposes, is a self-conscious literary and theoretical strategy. With a history of provoking reflection on the problem of narrative stasis, the tableau vivant appears in Venus im Pelz under the general sign of Titian and poses questions about reproduction, the body, and sexuality.