Hunting the Peacock: The Pursuit of Non-reflective Experience in Mirbeau's Le Jardin des supplices

The "fin-de-siècle" theme of the division of the self between actor and spectator is best expressed in Mirbeau's Le Jardin des supplices (1899) through the image of the peacock, which is both a bird and a sign of beauty. As both an object and a meaning that transcends it, the peacock becomes the focus of the narrator's and Clara's adventures in the torture garden. In hunting the peacock, they are seeking to act rather than reflect. They are attacking a society that substitutes consensual significations for direct experience. (REZ)