Are Nin and Millet too honest

Running Head: Are Nin and Millet too honest?
Are Nin and Millet too honest?
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Are Nin and Millet too honest?
Writing boldly and openly on the subject of sex has never been very common in any society of the world. However, a number of authors have played a very important role in producing wonderful literature on this subject. Anais Nin and Catherine Millet can safely be included among those authors. Nin and Millet are the two women in the history of literary who have presented their sexual and artistic expression openly and boldly in their literary works, attracting a large number of readers. Though the two women belong to different eras, their boldness and the style of expressions have some resemblance. Nin in The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1932-1934 and Millet in The Sexual life of Catherine M. Grove have talked about their sexual lives in their works in a way which make it clear that they both are honest in their comments. Nin and Millet who both have their roots in France earned good names as editors. Their works are considered as most remarkable records of individual lives and it would not be wrong to say that their works can perhaps be considered as valuable presentation in any literature of women as artists. The most important thing one can find in the works of both the authors is that they showed honesty in documenting the accounts of their sexual experiences. In explaining the modernization of sexuality, both Nin and Millet used phrases which can devise a new rhetoric of sexuality.
In the case of Nin who herself was a student of psychoanalysis the situation was more relevant because she was able to relate these understandings to dilemmas of her life. The painful realities of life can easily be found in her writing. And may be this is the reason that she did not hesitate in writing about her sexual life with honesty. She even discussed her awkward situations with honesty. On page 7 she said: "Other women touched her, embraced her; she went on turning. Wheel and earth, stars and cycles, turning, watch and wheels turning. A man embraced her and she ceased. At this I dissolved into an inexplicable sadness, which Rank felt without looking at me."
Nin`s expression that — she thinks about sex most of the time — shows that she is too honest in expression of wishes. However, Millet seems bolder in expression of her feelings. Despite Catholic upbringing, she entered the world of group sex soon after she lost her virginity at the age of 18. Millet openly talked about the adventures of her sexual life when she joined the moveable feast of Parisian orgies and sex parties. She has even not hesitated in talking about receiving dozens of men each night in her young age. Though blunt and strange to womanhood in their societies, it is difficult to deny that both Nin and Millet are honest in their expressions. Priding themselves on having been without hesitation and shame, observing their partners in a way that has traditionally belong to men, the works of both Nin and Millet would always be remembered as the most blatant memoirs.
Anais Nin — honesty with expression
Nin showed a great honesty with her expression by not hiding anything while writing about her sexual experiences and other emotional situations. On page 8 she said: "That night, in the Hartford hotel room, we discovered definitely the twinship." She offers special problems in any effort to discuss her work in the context of the American expatriate movement. "New lovers. With all New York pointing to ascension, to exultations, to climax to heightening. New York, the brilliant giant toy with such soft-oiled hinges." (2) The diary shows the writer`s artistic attitude toward life and the relationship she perceived between life and literature. She is therefore clean in heart about her own feelings about sexual life. Nin considered life as an adventure, or as a tale that the individual freely and artistically creates and narrates to herself. Nin wrote honestly about even those things which according to her were not morally right. On page 15 she said: "I play tricks to see Henry. Small deceptions." Though her portray of life style was strange to many during her time, she was honest and, in fact, too honest in the expression of her thoughts. This is a clear depiction of her level of honesty, in life and actions. Frustrated by the unhappy events in her life, Nin found salvage in her diary which eventually developed a character, becoming a close friend, a confidant, and a place to go for relief, or at times even an enemy, an agent of deception, and a frightening obsession. On page 29 she said: "Everything was changed. I didn`t want his kisses. The gifts he poured on me didn`t make me happy, somehow. But, oh, the pity, the pity I feel now as I write, the pity which is the cause of my deceptions." Nin found her diary as her companion which not only observed her grief and sorrow but also documented her happy moments. Whatever Nin`s thoughts were at the moment, she came to her diary for unrestrained introspection and complete truthfulness; even when the reality of the writer`s feelings or aspirations were not to be reckoned, her earnestness was untiring.
From diary to memoir
Nin never hesitated in expressing her feelings as she said on page 44: "I am happy today. I am a tyrant. Huck wants me for good, definitely, and is sad not to be given that, but I can also make him happier than anyone else can. Henry alone is the satisfied one." For Nin the decision to make her diaries public was not easy because since her childhood these diaries had been her close companions which had kept all of her secrets. However, once she had decided that would make the diaries public a new personality of surfaced. With this new personality Nin was a confident and bold woman. The confidence in Nin, in fact, was the result of the diary because it was a place for self-analysis and introspection. Nin`s confidence can be seen in her expression on page 67 as she said: "I prepare myself for his embrace by thinking about sex — just sex for its own sake."
The most important thing in the Nin`s work is that she honestly talked about deception. She said on page 84: "They hate you for the deception. They don`t love the pretender. Yet it is terrible to tell the truth as I have done. He forced me to. He knew the truth. I am deeply sad." Nin who had returned back to France published the first volume in mid-1930s. The initial volumes of the diary were both confessional and guarded in which Nin adopted a balance approach in the expression of events. After crossing the age of 30 Nin gave a new twist to her writings. Nin`s life as the spouse of Hugh Guiler was entirely omitted. The facts of her affairs with Miller and her fascination with June, the Miller`s wife, were also omitted. Despite many conflict in Nin`s statements, she honestly accepted the realities of life. After connecting happiness with the power on many occasions in the book, she says on page 74 that "I don`t want power, only art and passion". This brings to our attention the ideals of openness as envisaged by Nin. She feels to her that speaking the truth takes her off some presumed burdens, thus setting her free for major tasks in her life. The relationship with Rank as patient, apprentice and coworker was the source of her understanding of things because Rank`s ideas later help Nin her expressions. Nin`s relationship with Rank remained very useful for her because his ideas about the particular psychic aspects of artists and his compassion to each individual`s myth-making requirements were adapted by Nin for her own ideas. "When me and my father truly meet, it is not just a meeting but a realization of possibility of meeting on earth except as a man and a woman and the completeness of that sex." (152) clearly therefore, her relationship with Rank was a pivot entry in nurturing her life towards what she could have wanted.
The entries in Nin`s diary are dated by month and year. It is, in fact, a practice that masks the quiet omissions while it reflects her aspiration not to be held answerable to mere facts. It seems she was afraid of ...