Jean Genet’s life experiences in 1940’s France affected the content of his book Querelle of Brest. This is immediately evident when you glance at the main character of Querelle of Brest. The immediate comparisons are obvious, both Jean Genet and Querelle were in the French military, both Genet and Querelle are criminals, and both Genet and Querelle have a history of homosexual tendencies. These similarities are just the surface however. Genet uses the characters in Querelle of Brest to express complex ideas about his own self-image. Before delving into these ideas however, one must first know a bit about Jean Genet’s personal history and the environment he was in. Jean Genet was born in Paris, France in 1910. (Pendergast) Some sources claim that Genet’s mother was a prostitute but other sources dispute it, though regardless if she was a prostitute or not, Querelle never knew anything about his father and his mother abandoned him at birth. He was raised by foster parents who were reputedly very loving and supportive. Genet was a good student at school but he often got into trouble due to his often attempts of running away from home and stealing. (New World) Genet’s life of crime began at age ten when he was falsely accused of stealing. At that point Genet decided that he would become the thief that he was accused of being. (imagi-nation) It was a couple years later that Genet discovered that he was a homosexual. It was during these early years when Genet discovered who he was as a person. That person was a homosexual criminal and that discovery would later influence the rest of his life. (imagi-nation) Genet’s life as a thief eventually led him to be taken into a French Juvenile Deliquent Center known as Mettray Penal Colony (Pendergast). He was there until he joined the French military at the age of eighteen. He was soon dishonorably discharged from service due to being caught in a homosexual act. After being discharged from the military Genet started wandering Europe, supporting himself through a combination of stealing and prostitution. It was during this time of traveling when Genet found himself in Nazi Germany which he disliked and decided to go a country with more moral fiber. (New World) After Nazi Germany, Genet decided to return to France where he spent most of his time in and out of prison. It was during this time period that Genet wrote most of his early works including Querelle of Brest. The very controversial and vulgar diction that the novel uses is what one would expect from someone who had lived the sort of life that Querelle had but Genet did not simply choose to use that sort of language because it was what he was used to. Jean Genet really wanted to shock his readers. Jean Gene lived to make others see what the considered immoral. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an analysis on Jean Genet entitled Saint Genet where he called Genet a "passéistes" which means that Genet relates every experience he has to the time period where he discovered who he was, namely from the age of ten to fifteen. (Sartre) It was during this time period when Genet resolved to be a criminal and discovered himself to be homosexual. Both traits that he used to describe himself were shunned in society.
To avoid having a terrible self-image Genet flaunted both his criminal activity and his sexuality and came to love the detestation that others gave him due to his lifestyle choices. This is shown perfectly by his dislike of Nazi Germany. Genet described why he disliked the country when he said, "I had a feeling of being in a camp of organized bandits. This is a nation of thieves, I felt. If I steal here, I accomplish no special act that could help me to realize myself. I merely obey the habitual order of things. I do not destroy it." (goodreads) Genet wanted so strongly to do what was considered wrong that he left the one place where what he did was considered right. This love of immorality shows through in the writing of Querelle of Brest. Genet describes murder like he describes artwork and murderers like artists. Genet wrote “Added to the moral solitude of the murderer comes the solitude of the artist, which can acknowledge no authority, save that of another artist.” (goodreads) Genet clearly sees the act of murder something that is beautiful in its own twisted way. He has even been quoted saying “I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty - a sunken beauty.” (goodreads) Similarly, homosexual intercourse and everyone who participates in it is glorified. In particular Querelle, Nono, and Mario get lots of praise for their looks. Querelle even uses homosexual intercourse as a way to cleanse himself of past wrongs. Querelle is very different than other Jean Genet novels in its glorification of immorality. It is the only one of Genet’s written works where the main character “derives either pleasure or profit from his crime.” (Read) In Genet’s other stories, the main character generally gets caught and has to spend time in prison, and the homosexual characters in the stories are incapable of affection and loyalty. This would point to Jean Genet despising himself, showing the consequences of his actions. In Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of Jean Genet, Sartre determined that Jean Genet saw his life as unchangeable. (Sartre) This does not necessarily mean that he thinks that his life is great or desirable just that he cannot change who he is. When asked about how he came to be a homosexual Genet replied, “I'm homosexual... How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green.” (goodreads) Genet never even considered that maybe the events in his life or the people he knew affected who he was, he simply figured that he was born a certain way and he would die with all the same traits as when he was born. Wallace Fowlie made the comment that Genet felt a “submission to his fate” (Fowlie). This submission was a very probably cause for Genet’s often depressing self-image. To feel trapped into a personality that all of society shuns would be a terrible burden for anyone to carry. It makes sense that someone who felt that they were stuck with their respective persona would attempt to exalt their traits as much as possible. Though as much as Genet wants to believe his homosexual and criminal tendencies are desirable, it would be hard to keep that image when the rest of the world was constantly telling him otherwise. Though if Genet does not, in fact, love his identity as a homosexual criminal it begs the question as to why he would exalt those traits so much in Querelle of Brest. Why would the homosexual criminals in his other books all suffer in prison but Querelle escapes such treatment? The characteristic that Querelle has that Genet’s other protagonists lack is a sense of irony. (Coe) Genet’s previous characters have more in common with Gil who wants to challenge authority and is emotionally involved in his immoral deeds. This is also more similar to Genet himself who was always trying to challenge society’s ideas of moral behavior. Querelle does not commit his crimes due to some vendetta against society. Querelle does evil for the sake of doing evil, for the beauty of it. There was no logical reason for Querelle to kill his partner but Querelle needed to kill him regardless (Coe). This shift in character showcases Genet’s mind at the time of writing. Querelle of Brest was Genet’s last fictional novel before getting out of prison. It is possible that Genet had felt like giving up on his crusade against morality at this point. Looking at the book from this point of view shows less of a celebration of Genet’s personality but more of a resignation which makes more sense in the context of his other written works. While Genet does seem to celebrate immorality, the celebration is always done with a degree of self-loathing. The irony in Querelle of Brest makes the self-loathing more subtle yet more potent. In Genet’s other novels where the characters all suffer for their crimes it is almost bearable because many of the problems that the characters experience are due to others, generally authority figures which makes it seem that the characters unhappiness is not necessarily their fault. In Querelle of Brest because of the lack of punishment, it becomes clearer that Querelle cannot achieve true happiness simply because of who he is. While Querelle may get a perverse pleasure from his actions he can’t ever experience a true nurturing relationship. When Querelle got close to Gil he ended up betraying him because Querelle was incapable of being so emotionally close to someone. Jean Genet has said “Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.” (goodreads) This shows Genet’s similarity with Querelle. Like Querelle, Jean Genet believed that he was incapable of having close relationships. Because Genet felt that he could not become emotionally attached he decided to revel in what he felt he could feel, cold detachment and cynicism. Jean Genet does things that others perceive as evil and immoral because Genet feels that he was incapable of having emotions and desires that are not considered evil and immoral. This creates an ironic effect of having a love/hate relationship with himself. He loves his personality because he it is the only personality he has so in order to love himself he has to love his personality. Genet’s love/hate relationship with himself is not the only part of his personality that is seemingly conflicting. Gerald Prince made the comment that Genet was “a book lover, [yet] he owned no books. A homosexual, he was rarely attracted to other homosexuals. A great champion of singularity, he came to feel that all human beings were equally valuable. Though he showed himself capable of impassioned friendship, he extolled and often practiced betrayal.” (Prince) Jean Genet was a walking contradiction. Jean Genet’s way of understanding himself and the world around him was through these contradictions and as a consequence this contradictory and ironic viewpoint came through when writing Querelle. Just like Genet had many ironic features of his personality there is more irony in Querelle of Brest than just the characters inability to have normal relationships. One of the most ironic things about the story of Querelle of Brest is the masculinity of the characters. It is interesting to note that the characters that have homosexual intercourse are generally the most masculine characters. Nono, Mario, and Querelle are considered very masculine characters. They are all strong, active, and assertive, (Read) traits that would generally be used to describe male characteristics. Despite having such masculine traits, these characters from Querelle of Brest all effeminate themselves with homosexual intercourse. Querelle in particular has the dual nature of being very masculine yet being very effeminate during homosexual intercourse. Though usually Querelle is assertive and a very masculine character he embodies passivity when he takes the place of the woman in intercourse by being anally penetrated. Even characters such as Nono and Mario realized that though physically they were dominating Querelle, Querelle was the one with the power in their relationship (Gale). This dual-nature of Querelle is symbolic of Jean Genet’s own often contradictory personality. The main characters in Querelle of Brest all have ironic seemingly contradictory personality traits. Jean Genet wrote the characters with ironic personalities to show his own contradictory traits. The change from obvious self-loathing to an ironic celebration of himself shows something about how Jean Genet was thinking at the time of writing the book Querelle of Brest. At the time of writing Querelle, Genet had spent a considerable amount of time in prison and this could have made him feel a resignation about his lot in life; he could not have known that he was going to get out of prison in just a couple short years. Genet was facing a life sentence in jail. Feeling a resignation towards life would be a completely natural response to someone who felt that for all intents and purposes their “life” was effectively over. After all, having to rot in a jail cell the rest of one’s living days is almost equivalent to not being alive as one can’t actually do anything in that environment except to wait to die. Jean Genet was coming to terms with his lot in life and instead of beating himself up about it he decided to celebrate what his life was like before he was sentenced to prison. However, no matter how much Genet decided he would celebrate his lifestyle the underlying truth about his dismal situation in life would peak through in his writing. This state of mind of Jean Genet where tried to mask the dismal state of his life through an external glorification of his personality directly affected his characterization of the protagonists of Querelle of Brest. This was primarily shown through the ironic nature of all the primary characters of the book. These characters and themes in Querelle parallel Genet’s own life experiences and feelings.

Works Cited
Coe, Richard N. The Vision of Jean Genet,. New York: Grove, 1968. Print. (1) Fowlie, Wallace. "Jean Genet: Overview." Reference Guide to World Literature. Ed. Lesley Henderson. 2nd ed. New York: St. James Press, 1995.Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.
"Genet, Jean." Info:Main Page - New World Encyclopedia. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Jean_Genet>. (2)
"Jean Genet (1910-1986)." Imagi-nation.com. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc42.html>. (3)
"Jean Genet Quotes (Author of Our Lady of the Flowers)." Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/29952.Jean_Genet>. (4) "Overview: Querelle de Brest." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Dec. 2011. Reference Guide to World Literature. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Vol. 1: Authors. 3rded. Detroit: St. James Press, 2003. p371-372. Prince, Gerald. "Book Review Genet." Philosophy and Literature 19 (1995). Print.
Read, Barbara, and Ian Birchall. Flowers and Revolution: a Collection of Writings on Jean Genet. London: Middlesex UP, 1997. Print. (5) Sartre, Jean-Paul. Saint Genet. 1952. Print.