Emmanuelle (novel)
Encyclopedia
Emmanuelle is an erotic novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Emmanuelle Arsan
Emmanuelle Arsan
Emmanuelle Arsan, the pen name of Marayat Rollet-Andriane, born in 1932 as Marayat Bibidh, is a French novelist of Eurasian origin, most famous for creating the fictional character Emmanuelle, a woman who engages in an exploration of her own sexuality under varying circumstances.Arsan was born in...

 originally written in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and published in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in 1967
1967 in literature
The year 1967 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Influential science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions published.*Cecil Day-Lewis is selected as the new Poet Laureate of the UK.-New books:...

. It was translated into and published in English in 1971 by Mayflower Books. It is a series of explicit erotic fantasies of the authoress in which she has sex
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...

 with several—often anonymous—men, her husband, and several lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 encounters too. It is written in the first person
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

 and the reader sees events entirely through the eyes of the sexually adventurous heroine. The book sold widely and later went on to be made into/inspired a series of films
Emmanuelle (film)
Emmanuelle is a 1974 French softcore erotic film, directed by Just Jaeckin, and starring Sylvia Kristel. The screenplay was written by Jean-Louis Richard, based on the novel Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman by Emmanuelle Arsan. The music score is by Pierre Bachelet. The film was highly successful in...

. A sequel, Emmanuelle 2
Emmanuelle 2
Emmanuelle 2 is a 1975 French softcore erotica movie directed by Francis Giacobetti, and starring Sylvia Kristel. The screenplay was written by Bob Elia and Francis Giacobetti, based on novel Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman by Emmanuelle Arsan...

, followed in 1976.

Plot summary

Emmanuelle, the 19 year-old wife of a French engineer, is flying out to join her husband in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

. While on the plane, she has anonymous sexual encounters with two men, the first time she has cheated on her husband since they were married.

She arrives in Bangkok and becomes part of a hedonistic community of western expats. She makes two new friends - Ariane de Saynes, a 30 year-old French countess, and Marie-Anne, a younger girl. Both friendships have a strong homoerotic flavor. Emmanuelle and Marie-Anne begin a series of sexual games in which they take it in turns to masturbate while the other watches. Meanwhile, Ariane makes a series of attempts to seduce Emmanuelle, culminating in a sexual encounter between the two women on a squash court which verges on rape. Afterwards Ariane tries to persuade Emmanuelle to return home with her. Emmanuelle rejects her advances, but immediately regrets doing so.

At a tea party hosted by Marie-Anne's mother, Emmanuelle meets Bee, the sister of a naval attaché at the American Embassy. Emmanuelle is immediately attracted to the slender, red-headed Bee, and when the two women meet later by chance on the streets of Bangkok she takes the opportunity to invite Bee home with her. Emmanuelle seduces her and the two women make love, first in the shower and then in Emmanuelle's bed. Afterwards Emmanuelle professes her love for Bee, who is taken aback, having never been with another woman before. They agree to meet again, but Bee does not come and Emmanuelle realizes she has no way of contacting her. She is heartbroken and is comforted by her husband.

Marie-Anne, meanwhile, believes that Emmanuelle needs to be cured of her need to associate sex with love. She offers to introduce Emmanuelle to a friend, Mario, an Italian nobleman, who can do this. The two meet for the first time at an embassy cocktail party and Emmanuelle agrees to join him for dinner the following night. Emmanuelle thinks that Mario will become her lover, but Ariane dismisses this idea, telling Emmanuelle that Mario is gay.

The following evening, Emmanuelle and Mario have dinner at Mario's house, joined by an Englishman called Quentin. Over dinner, Mario expounds his philosophy of eroticism, which is that true freedom comes only when eroticism is divorced from love. He offers to take Emmanuelle on a trip that will demonstrate this. The three plunge into the back streets of Bangkok. They visit an opium den and then a temple, where Emmanuelle makes two votive offerings; first by masturbating Mario and then by performing oral sex on a boy. Later, having parted company with Quentin, the two return to Mario's house in a rickshaw pulled by a Thai driver (or sam-lo). During the ride, Emmanuelle demonstrates her new-found freedom by removing her top and then fellating Mario in public. They arrive back at Mario's house and he tells her that he is going to take her 'through' the body of the sam-lo. The three make love, the sam-lo penetrating Emmanuelle while Mario penetrates the sam-lo. As the three reach orgasm together, Emmanuelle screams out "I'm in love! I'm in love!"

East vs West

Bangkok is portrayed as a hedonistic city which has a sybaritic effect on its western expat population. Emmanuelle has erotic encounters in settings that represent stereotypes for the exoticism of the East (a massage parlor, opium den, and temple).

Love vs Lust

The underlying theme of the novel is the conflict between Emmanuelle's need for love (as typified by her relationships with Jean and Bee) and her innate eroticism (as shown by her anonymous sexual encounters on the plane and her games with Marie-Anne). Mario seeks to address this philosophically in Chapter V of the novel ("The Law"), arguing that surrendering to eroticism will liberate her. The last chapter of the story shows the beginning of this process, which is continued in the 1976 sequel to the novel.

Sexuality

Three of the major characters in the novel - Emmanuelle, Ariane, and Mario - are bisexual
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...

 in orientation. Although married and despite having sexual encounters with two other men, Emmanuelle describes herself to Mario as a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

; she has a passionate sexual relationship with one woman (Bee), and also other sexual encounters with two more (Ariane and Marie-Anne), and expresses attraction to various others (e.g. a flight attendant); it is also hinted that she has had sexual relationships with women prior to arriving in Thailand. Mario is described by Ariane as being gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

, is primarily attracted to men and has sex with the sam-lo, but also allows himself to be fellated and masturbated by Emmanuelle. Ariane is married and has had numerous male lovers, but is strongly attracted to Emmanuelle and makes several attempts to seduce her, including one quasi-rape.

History

Although the formal date of publication is usually given as 1967, the novel was actually first published and distributed clandestinely in France, without an author's name, in 1959. Successive editions later bore the nom-de-plume Emmanuelle Arsan, who was subsequently revealed to be Marayat Rollet-Andriane. Though the novel was sometimes hinted to be a quasi-autobiography, it was later revealed that the actual author was her husband Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane, although it has also been claimed that both spouses may have contributed.

Adaptations

The best known adaptation of Emmanuelle is the 1974 film of the same name
Emmanuelle (film)
Emmanuelle is a 1974 French softcore erotic film, directed by Just Jaeckin, and starring Sylvia Kristel. The screenplay was written by Jean-Louis Richard, based on the novel Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman by Emmanuelle Arsan. The music score is by Pierre Bachelet. The film was highly successful in...

, directed by Just Jaeckin
Just Jaeckin
Just Jaeckin is a French film director.-Life:He was born in Vichy France during the Nazi Occupation, but left with his mother and father for England: after the war, he returned to France where he studied art and photography, much of it he did before and after serving with the French Army: while...

, and starring Sylvia Kristel
Sylvia Kristel
Sylvia Kristel is a Dutch actress, model and singer. Her most famous role is in the French film Emmanuelle.- Early life :...

. The screenplay was written by Jean-Louis Richard and more-or-less follows the plot of the novel. The film was highly successful in France and around the world. It spawned several sequels and influenced many similar films.

In 1978, Italian artist Guido Crepax
Guido Crepax
Guido Crepax was an Italian comics artist. He is most famous for his character Valentina, created in 1965 and very representative of the spirit of the sixties. The Valentina series of books and strips became noted for Crepax's sophisticated drawing, and for the psychedelic, dreamlike storylines,...

produced a graphic adaptation of the novel which faithfully mirrors the plot of the original.

External links

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