Ourika

Even as historical events render the world dangerous and potentially deadly for her aristocratic friends—and the French Revolution escalates into the bloody year of the Reign of Terror—Ourika finds momentary relief from her despair. She grows close to Mme de B. and Charles while the three are confined to Mme de B.’s St. Germain estate; she feels included. She tells the doctor that “all personal destiny was turned upside down, all social caste overthrown, all prejudices had disappeared,” giving her hope that one day she will feel “less exiled” (19).

However, because of the continued violence of the Revolution and the fact that “people still found time, in all this adversity, to despise” her, Ourika “soon stopped being the dupe of their false notion of fraternity” (20). Emancipation talks are confined to philosophical discussions in the salon. Ourika doubts that her social situation will improve; it will mean nothing for her even if the anti-royalists win. She will still be judged based on her skin color rather than her many merits.

As Ourika’s feelings of isolation return and deepen, she is unable or unwilling to discuss her grief with friends. Instead, she directs her negative feelings inward—at herself, her skin color, and her identity. She becomes self-centered in her grieving (for which both the priest and the marquise reprimand her), and her mental state declines. The contrast between the trajectory of her life and Charles’ sharpens. This is particularly painful for Ourika. Charles functions as a nostalgic anchoring point: They grew up as brother and sister, as well as best friends. Charles occupied a large chunk of Ourika’s small social world. Ironically, the reason she does not confide in him is that she greatly values their friendship.

Yet Ourika’s isolation—her “otherness”—leads her to distrust her valued family relationships, which ultimately drives her to the brink of death. While she is close to Mme de B., she is not actually her daughter. While Charles is her closest childhood friend, she is not actually his sister. And, as Charles’ marriage to Anaïs makes painfully clear, she will likely never be a wife or mother—that is, never have a family of her own.

Ourika is afflicted by the realization that she will not be able to fulfill any of the socially expected, female gender roles of her era. This causes her to regret even her situation as a free black woman. If she had been a slave, she muses, “I would have had a poor hut of my own to go to at day’s end; a partner in my life, children of my own race who would call me their mother, who would kiss my face without disgust” (39). Perversely, she believes the bonds of slavery offer her the only possibility of true belonging. Of course, she has no knowledge of the horrors of slavery; she merely envisions being “[s]corched by the sun, […] laboring on someone else’s land” (39) and ignores the physical and mental toll of bondage. However, her wish shows the severity of her desperation.

Arguably, the most tragic moment in the book comes when the marquise manages to convince Ourika that she is in love with Charles. The doctor (as well as the reader) is privy to Ourika’s innermost thoughts about Charles. She thinks of him as a brother and at times even considers him in a maternal way, her grief having aged her mentally. Until this point in the novella, it is clear that her depression is derived from self-hatred for her black skin. However, the marquise insists that this is not the case; she contends that Ourika’s sadness comes from “‘an insane and doomed passion for Charles’” (42). Ourika wonders, “Had what had cancered my heart really been no more than a forbidden love?” (43). She concedes to the notion and tells the doctor that “a mysterious voice cried deep in my heart: she is right, I am guilty” (43). Her final lines show that she has completely bought the marquise’s words: “Let me go, Charles, to the one place where I may still think of you day and night […]” (46).

Ourika’s acceptance on this point is problematic given that the novella is credited as a progressive, abolitionist text. The story, one of the first European literary works written from a black woman’s perspective, demonstrates that human destiny is shaped more by nurture than by nature. Yet Ourika’s forbidden love for Charles undermines its message of equality. De Duras allows her social commentary only to go so far. Instead, of succumbing to the pains of her racial status, Ourika is shown to suffer, ultimately, from the typical trope of unrequited love.

Certainly Ourika’s race plays a role in separating her from Charles; however, Ourika’s thoughts in the last few pages—in which she begins to view her aristocratic upbringing as unnatural compared to the more natural role of slave—seem to normalize the treatment of blacks during this time. She fits the misfortunes of her life into a religious mold: God rescued her “from savagery and ignorance” and “[b]y a miracle of charity” took her from “the evils of slavery” (46). Ourika’s life is miraculous, but because of this, it is singular. She is an anomaly. Her story comes dangerously close to becoming a critique of integration and upsetting the natural order.