Venus in Furs

“‘Look at the woman,’ he replied, blinking humorously with his eyes. ‘Had I flattered her, she would have cast the noose around my neck, but now, when I bring her up with the kantchuk, she adores me.’ ‘Nonsense!’ ‘Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break in women.’”

Severin’s cruelty foreshadows the conclusion of the novella, as his discussion with the narrator regarding his dream of the dominating Venus is broken up by his spontaneous abuse of his maid. The use of a kantchuk, a kind of whip, likewise imbues the abuse with the same symbolism that later characterizes Wanda’s relationship with Severin (See: Symbols & Motifs). This passage also introduces the theme of The Exploration of Sexual Power Dynamics.

“To love, to be loved, what happiness! And yet how the glamour of this pales in comparison with the tormenting bliss of worshipping a woman who makes a plaything out of us, of being the slave of a beautiful tyrant who treads us pitilessly underfoot. Even Samson, the hero, the giant, again put himself into the hands of Delilah, even after she had betrayed him, and again she betrayed him, and the Philistines bound him and put out his eyes which until the very end he kept fixed, drunken with rage and love, upon the beautiful betrayer.”

Severin’s comparisons to Samson frame him as a biblical hero, suffering for the virtue of his love. However, Severin is also rejecting happy, monogamous love in favor of the martyrdom of masochism, in which he can see himself as a happy victim rather than a mutual lover. Like Samson, though, this comparison foreshadows Severin’s future misfortune and betrayal with Wanda.

“In nature there is only the love of the heroic age, ‘when gods and goddesses loved.’ At that time ‘desire followed the glance, enjoyment desire.’ All else is facetious, affected, a lie. Christianity, whose cruel emblem, the cross, has always had for me an element of the monstrous, brought something alien and hostile into nature and its innocent instincts. ‘The battle of the spirit with the senses is the gospel of modern man. I do not care to have a share in it.’”

The idea of “natural” love falls in line with Decadent thinking, which likewise rejected Christian values of monogamy, marriage, and chastity. Instead, Wanda and Severin embrace the classical Greco-Roman view of love, in which the gods and goddesses wielded full control over mortals for their own pleasure. Wanda’s rejection of “modern man” is a rejection of the desire of men to own her, not necessarily of her ability to choose a man to dominate her. This contrast between Christian sexual ethics and Greco-Roman passion introduces The Influence of Societal Norms on Sexual Behavior.

“VENUS IN FURS. ‘Place thy foot upon thy slave, Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams; Among the shadows, dark and grave, Thy extended body softly gleams.’ And—so on. This time I really got beyond the first stanza. At her request I gave her the poem in the evening, keeping no copy. And now as I am writing this down in my diary I can only remember the first stanza.”

Severin breaks through his perpetual dilettantism by completing a poem, but he fails to remember any part of it but the first stanza. The poem worships Venus as a cruel, dominating “master” over him, but it also hints at themes of death and darkness, foreshadowing Severin’s tense relationship with Wanda. Severin’s desire to be dominated reflects The Exploration of Sexual Power Dynamics.

“‘During this year we will live as though we were married—’ My blood rose to my head. In her eyes too there was a sudden flame— ‘We will live together,’ she continued, ‘share our daily life, so that we may find out whether we are really fitted for each other. I grant you all the rights of a husband, of a lover, of a friend. Are you satisfied?’ ‘I suppose, I'll have to be?’ ‘You don't have to.’ ‘Well then, I want to—’ ‘Splendid. That is how a man speaks. Here is my hand.’”

Wanda and Severin’s agreement is less relevant than the interaction they share over it, introducing the theme of The Psychological Negotiation of Power and Submission. When Severin tacitly agrees, saying, “I’ll have to be?” he is implicitly noting his lack of control, even though his relationship with Wanda is proceeding according to his own desires. When Wanda prompts him to speak directly, adding that is “how a man speaks,” she is beginning the process of controlling Severin by forcing him to stick to his prior desires.

“‘Were the martyrs also soft and sensual by nature?’ ‘The martyrs?’ ‘On the contrary, they were supersensual men, who found enjoyment in suffering. They sought out the most frightful tortures, even death itself, as others seek joy, and as they were, so am I—supersensual.’ ‘Have a care that in being such, you do not become a martyr to love, the martyr of a woman.’”

Severin’s worship of the martyrs imbues his desires with a Christian light and a feeling of guilt, in which the martyrs sought punishment to prove their devotion. When Wanda cautions him not to become a martyr to a woman, she is noting that their love is supposed to be Greco-Roman in nature, not modern or Christian, meaning there may not be any heavenly reward for his suffering. Severin’s blending of Christian and Greco-Roman ideals invokes The Influence of Societal Norms on Sexual Behavior.

“Furthermore furs have a stimulating effect on all highly organized natures. This is due both to general and natural laws. It is a physical stimulus which sets you tingling, and no one can wholly escape it. Science has recently shown a certain relationship between electricity and warmth; at any rate, their effects upon the human organism are related. The torrid zone produces more passionate characters, a heated atmosphere stimulation. Likewise with electricity.”

Severin’s scientific rationalization for the arousing properties of fur shows the influence of his own learning on understanding his desires. Rather than link his obsession with furs to his aunt, or to acknowledge the historical significance of the rulers who wore furs, he deflects to the idea of static electricity, making his desire normal and proven as a form of security.

“‘Marvellous woman!’ I exclaimed. ‘Silence, slave!’ She suddenly scowled, looked savage, and struck me with the whip. A moment later she threw her arm tenderly about me, and pityingly bent down to me. ‘Did I hurt you?’ she asked, half-shyly, half-timidly. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘and even if you had, pains that come through you are a joy. Strike again, if it gives you pleasure.’ ‘But it doesn't give me pleasure.’”

This passage highlights the disparity between Severin and Wanda’s desires, as she fulfills his fantasy without full enjoyment of her own. Wanda wants to be dominated, and dominating Severin only brings her the joy of making her lover happy without the joy of being satisfied herself. Her concern for Severin’s well-being is already beginning to fade, as she is starting to resent his desires. This disparity also reflects The Psychological Negotiation of Power and Submission, with Severin failing to realize how his desires and Wanda’s desires are not truly aligned.

“‘Oh, I am so terribly in love.’ I had sunken on my knees, and was burying my glowing face in her lap. ‘I really believe,’ said Wanda thoughtfully, ‘that your madness is nothing but a demonic, unsatisfied sensuality. Our unnatural way of life must generate such illnesses. Were you less virtuous, you would be completely sane.’”

Wanda notes the contradiction between the modern world and Severin’s desires, speculating, as many psychologists later would, that masochism is a disorder (See: Background). Within the context of the novella, she is correct in determining that Severin is not entirely happy with his fantasy, as well as that it came out of the abuse he suffered as a child. However, the key term in this passage is “virtuous,” which implies that Severin’s desire for suffering comes from his own delusions of grandeur.

“She has the nature of a savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel, according to the impulse that dominates at the moment. Throughout history it has always been a serious deep culture which has produced moral character. Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never follows anything but impulses. Don't ever forget that, and never feel secure with the woman you love.”

Wanda’s caution to Severin here focuses on her own use of internalized misogyny, in which she frames women as inherently untrustworthy. However, the true meaning behind her words reflects her earlier statements about herself, in which she knows she cannot love Severin for long. Her warning is less about women in general and more about Severin’s unhealthy obsession with her.

“Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers everything, because it must. It is not our judgment that leads us; it is neither the advantages nor the faults which we discover, that make us abandon ourselves, or that repel us. It is a sweet, soft, enigmatic power that drives us on. We cease to think, to feel, to will; we let ourselves be carried away by it, and ask not whither?”

Severin’s view of love is as something uncontrollable that forces people onward even in the face of toxicity, abuse, or betrayal. This passage suggests that Severin would forgive Wanda for any maltreatment, but it recalls Severin’s conditions that Wanda never leave him or allow another man to hurt him. Regardless of Severin’s idealism, this passage foreshadows a moment in which Severin will have to abandon his love for Wanda.

“‘I forbid any sort of familiarity,’ she said, cutting my words short, ‘likewise you are not to come in unless I call or ring for you, and you are not to speak to me until you are spoken to. From now on your name is no longer Severin, but Gregor.’ I trembled with rage, and yet, unfortunately, I cannot deny it, I also felt a strange pleasure and stimulation.”

Wanda’s decision to formally treat Severin as her servant, including giving him a new name, changes the nature of their play-acting, as it increases the distance between Wanda and her actions toward Severin. Part of Severin’s rage is at the way his identity is being overwritten in the game, which is further exacerbated by sitting in the lower-class section of the train and being forced to stay in a room with no heat later on.

“I can see that you are more than an ordinary dreamer, you don't remain far in arrears of your dreams; you are the sort of man who is ready to carry his dreams into effect, no matter how mad they are. I confess, I like this; it impresses me. There is strength in this, and strength is the only thing one respects. I actually believe that under unusual circumstances, in a period of great deeds, what seems to be your weakness would reveal itself as extraordinary power.”

Wanda’s view of Severin is complex, as she values traditional tenets of masculinity, such as assertiveness, aggression, and confidence. Severin possesses these traits, but he uses them to submit to Wanda and carry out his dream. As such, he is both aggressive and passive, dominating and submitting.

“Her white satin skirt fluttered and crackled; the ermine of her jacket and cap, but especially her face, gleamed whiter than the snow. She shot toward me, inclosed me in her arms, and began to kiss me. Suddenly I felt my blood running warm down my side. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked horror-stricken. She laughed, and as I looked at her now, it was no longer Wanda, but a huge, white she-bear, who was digging her paws into my body.”

Severin’s dream of the bear shows his internal fear that Wanda will carry the game too far, legitimately hurting him physically or emotionally. The purity evoked by white snow is clouded by the red of his blood, and the imagery of the dream starkly shifts from peaceful to violent and animalistic with the verb “digging.” This passage reflects the important motif of dreams in the novella (Symbols & Motifs).

“‘Now play has come to an end between us,’ she said with heartless coldness. ‘Now we will begin in dead earnest. You fool, I laugh at you and despise you; you who in your insane infatuation have given yourself as a plaything to me, the frivolous and capricious woman. You are no longer the man I love, but my slave, at my mercy even unto life and death. You shall know me!’”

Wanda says that the play-acting of their game is over, as she knows that Severin still believes there are limits to how severely she will mistreat him. In saying “You shall know me!” Wanda is making it clear that she is becoming a woman unlike the type that Severin expects, as she feels he has provoked even greater malice from her.

“‘I have been absolutely faithful to you,’ replied Wanda, ‘I swear it by all that is holy to me. All that I have done was merely to fulfill your dream and it was done for your sake. However, I shall take a lover, otherwise things will be only half accomplished, and in the end you will yet reproach me with not having treated you cruelly enough, my dear beautiful slave! But to-day you shall be Severin again, the only one I love. I haven't given away your clothes. They are here in the chest.’”

The complication of Severin’s desires is that he both wants to experience the torment of Wanda’s infidelity and fears that her infidelity will lead her to leave him. Wanda knows this, and so she insists that she needs to take a lover, but she also acknowledges her love for Severin, returning his clothes as a symbol for his identity.

“‘Consider well what you do,’ she said. ‘I have loved you infinitely and have been despotic towards you so that I might fulfil your dream. Something of my old feeling, a sort of real sympathy for you, still trembles in my breast. When that too has gone who knows whether then I shall give you your liberty; whether I shall not then become really cruel, merciless, even brutal toward; whether I shall not take a diabolical pleasure in tormenting and putting on the rack the man who worships me idolatrously, the while I remain indifferent or love someone else; perhaps, I shall enjoy seeing him die of his love for me. Consider this well.’”

As Wanda’s feelings for Severin shift, she explains how Severin is treading into unknown territory with his fantasy, reflecting The Exploration of Sexual Power Dynamics. Wanda’s desire to please Severin is starting to pale before her own desire to be satisfied, which will lead her to become increasingly abusive.

“‘The expression which you need for your picture,’ she replied, smiling. ‘Wait a moment.’ She rose, and dealt me a blow with the whip. The painter looked at her with stupefaction, and a child-like surprise showed on his face, mingled with disgust and admiration. While whipping me, Wanda's face acquired more and more of the cruel, contemptuous character, which so haunts and intoxicates me.”

The crucial element of this passage is Wanda’s cavalier attitude toward beating Severin. She instantaneously and calmly takes the whip and beats him, as though it were a simple, innocuous action. The painter is disturbed, but Severin falls even more in love with Wanda as he watches her face take on the character of malice.

“Under his icy glance I am again seized by a mortal fear. I have a presentiment that this man can enchain her, captivate her, subjugate her, and I feel inferior in contrast with his savage masculinity; I am filled with envy, with jealousy. I feel that I am a queer weakly creature of brains, merely! And what is most humiliating, I want to hate him, but I can't. Why is that among all the host of servants he has chosen me.”

Severin’s mixed feelings toward Alexis betray his sense of impending doom regarding Alexis’s influence on Wanda. He knows that Alexis is both the perfect man for Wanda and the perfect man to complete his fantasy of infidelity. His fear of Alexis’s “savage masculinity” reflects Severin’s complicated feelings toward traditional gender norms, invoking The Influence of Societal Norms on Sexual Behavior.

“‘When the lion whom she has chosen and with whom she lives is attacked by another,’ the Greek went on with his narrative, ‘the lioness quietly lies down and watches the battle. Even if her mate is worsted she does not go to his aid. She looks on indifferently as he bleeds to death under his opponent's claws, and follows the victor, the stronger—that is the female's nature.’ At this moment my lioness looked quickly and curiously at me.”

Alexis’s analysis of the lions’ behavior mirrors the reality he, Wanda, and Severin are experiencing, in which Alexis intends to beat Severin and take Wanda. Severin and Wanda know this as well, prompting Wanda, Severin’s “lioness,” to look at him, knowing that she will abandon him for the stronger “lion.”

“‘I might punish you,’ she replied ironically, ‘but I prefer this time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to accuse me. Haven't I always been honest with you? Haven't I warned you more than once? Didn't I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you want now?’”

Wanda’s speech to Severin exposes the flaw in Severin’s desire to paint Wanda as a horrible woman who mistreated him. From the beginning, Wanda has been clear in her desires, and she even warned Severin that their situation would become untenable if they continued. Now, as she threatens to leave him for Alexis, she notes how predictable this conclusion to their relationship always was.

“‘And you—you are cold—you hold me like a block of wood; wait, I'll stir you with the fire of love,’ she said, and again clung fawningly and caressingly to my lips. ‘I no longer please you; I suppose I'll have to be cruel to you again, evidently I have been too kind to you to-day. Do you know, you little fool, what I shall do, I shall whip you for a while—’ ‘But child—’ ‘I want to.’”

Wanda’s false desire to punish Severin betrays her desire to “cure” his masochistic desires. It is possible that Wanda hoped, in this moment, that Severin would be satisfied to hold her like a “normal” lover, but she knows that he will always want her to abuse him. As such, she complies for a final time before calling in Alexis. 

“My look wandered about the room and remained fixed on the ceiling, where Samson, lying at Delilah's feet, was about to have his eyes put out by the Philistines. The picture at that moment seemed to me like a symbol, an eternal parable of passion and lust, of the love of man for woman. ‘Each one of us in the end is a Samson,’ I thought, ‘and ultimately for better or worse is betrayed by the woman he loves, whether he wears an ordinary coat or sables.’”

The issue with Severin’s comparison of himself to Samson lies in the fact that Samson was betrayed by Delilah without warning and without a prior agreement of abuse. Severin sees himself as a divine figure, perpetually in agony at the hands of women, but the reality is that he is suffering the consequences of ignoring Wanda’s own desires throughout their relationship.