In his Book XX Lacan makes the radical statement that “there is no such thing as Woman” (72-73). By this, it is meant that patriarchy has created a totalizing notion of womanhood which is a societal fiction. Ian McEwan’s novella “Dead as They Come” and Angela Carter’s novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman both boast a sadistic male who falls in love with a submissive woman, and in the end, murders her. Within both works, male sadism is presented as a foundational element of patriarchy, a societal structure where men dominate women. “Dead as They Come” and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman both put on a show of male sadism through their male protagonists. In the two works, stereotypical gender roles are imposed on women, so that women appear inherently masochistic. In essence, male sadism generates an illusory version of women as masochistic which condemns them to death.

The normalization of gender roles within the larger patriarchal frame is represented, in the two works, through the male sadism/female masochism dynamic. Chancer confirms this concept: “[h]eterosexuality, in fantasy and realism, is often still experienced as inseparable from the eroticization of dominate/subordinate related among male/female lines” (125). This can be related back to Lacan’s idea of masochism as “male phantasy.” It shows that the idea of innately masochistic females extends past male fantasy and enters into the dynamics of the patriarchal societal structure. Even the psychology and biology of women appear masochistic in nature:

Only the biological life of the human female contains the painful experiences of menstruation and childbirth. According to Deutsch, women would be unwilling to bear these strains unless they also took pleasure in their pain. And, since reproduction is clearly not a luxury the race can afford to eschew, female masochism is rendered necessary to human survival. It is not to be changed, nor is it changeable. The well-adjusted woman would be one who resigns herself to it gracefully, with humility and without developing a rebellious reaction formation against it. [. . .] Not only biology but psychology too was apparently destined. (Chancer 128)

Deustch appeals to essentialism and claims that women, in their essence, are masochists and that female masochism is essential to the survival of the species; submissiveness and pain become associated with female pleasure and thus are “normalized.” This normalization of both female and male gender roles results in “frames” that both sexes are supposed to fill, with men in control and taking pleasure in it, while women take pleasure in their submission. This places women in the inferior position in the hierarchy.

Sigmund Freud once famously confessed, “[t]he great question that has never been answered, and which I [Freud] have not been able to answer despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is ‘What does a woman want?’” (qtd. In Cherry, “Freud & Women: Freud’s Perspective on Women”). The sadistic male protagonists in The Infernal Desire Machines and “Dead as They Come” seem to be answering this very question as they “frame” their female counterparts as masochists. Helen (from “Dead as They Come”) and Albertina (The Infernal Desire Machines) are the objects of their respective male lovers’ affections. However, it is through the male sadistic perspective that the female partners are described as masochistic. Lacan claims in Book X that masochism is “a male or men’s affair” (183) as well as “male phantasy” (176). Yet, McEwan’s narrator describes Helen’s enjoyment as she is being murdered: “I know her death was a moment of intense pleasure to her (92); and Carter’s narrator Desiderio excuses Albertina’s murder as purely self defense: “I think I killed her to stop her killing me. I think that was the case. I am almost sure it was the case. Almost certain” (265). Regardless of the excuse, the male sadist is still justifying his desires by blaming the victim. By describing Helen as enjoying her death, the narrator of “Dead as They Come” excuses his violent act. By contrast, Desiderio appears to be trying to convince himself of his innocence as he is only “almost certain” that he killed Albertina in self defense. Thus, the masochistic female as a male fantasy is a social construct which reveals a hidden side of patriarchy. Defining women as masochists who associate pleasure with pain excuses men from blame and also allows for the mistreatment of women to be normalized.

The objectification of women further leads to the naturalization of women’s position as submissive and inferior to men’s position as dominant and superior. The actions and appearance of the women in “Dead as They Come” and The Infernal Desire Machines are often described using metaphors concerning the natural world: “[a]nd how [Helen] clung to me, clinging tightly to my lapels like a newborn monkey” (McEwan 79) and “she was a swan and also a woman [. . .] and on the collar was engraved a single word: ALBERTINA” (Carter 29). In relating women to nature or animals, the narrators proclaim them as inferior. Chancer uses anthropologist Sherri Ortner’s theory to explain this pervasive process:

As anthropologist Sherri Ortner has contended, all patriarchal societies—in her view, all known societies—have created a reinforced association between women and the world of “nature,” leaving men the projects of “culture.” Culture, declared Ortner, came itself to be viewed as the business of “transcending” and “dominating” the uncertain, contingent and forever decaying the reality of the (read: inferior and feminized) natural world. (130)

On the whole, the binary associations Ornter discusses mean that patriarchy dominates nature in order make more room for society to flourish.

Another recurrent rhetorical strategy the male narrators use in the two works of fiction mentioned is the comparison between their female partners’ bodies and objects. Helen, for all the character-narrator’s pretense, is a mannequin: “I wanted the dummy (ah my Helen)” (McEwan 78). Albertina, likewise, comes to Desiredio in a dream “with flesh of glass” (Carter 22). Mendoza, the peep-show proprietor, openly “extort[s]: ‘[o]jectify your desires!’” (129) to which Desiredio answers, “this seemed very important but I was not at all sure why” (130). This is because the objectification of women has been normalized by the patriarchy. The peep-show exhibits take female masochism and objectification to the extreme by placing figures of sexualized women in various forms of disassembly: “[t]he legs of a woman raised and open as if ready to admit a love, [. . . ] [t]his anatomical section, composed of pinkish wax dimpled at the knee, did not admit the possibility of the existence of a torso” (45) and “a wax figure of the headless body of a mutilated woman lay in a pool of painted blood. She wore only the remains of black stockings and a ripped suspender belt of shiny black rubber” (47). Constantini explains that such images of “deathly love”

exemplify one of the many processes of corporeal distortion triggered by male lust and power-wish, namely, the stripping and sublimation of women’s flesh required by the patriarchy to satisfy men’s whims while preventing the danger of uncontrolled female sexuality. (19)

Framing women as not only submissive, but incapable of opinion or even control over their own actions allows men to be continually dominating them. This distortion of the female form further objectifies women because it focuses on specific parts of the female body rather than looking at women as a whole. All in all, the women are compared to anything but being equal to the male sadist, which places women in a lower position within the patriarchal structure.

The male sadist is both possessive and obsessive over his female counterpart, and his fear of losing control over his perceived “property” results in madness. In believing that he is losing control over Helen because of her supposed affair with his chauffer, the character-narrator is shown to become physically ill: “[e]ssentially I was a disintegrating man, I was coming apart” (McEwan 90). Also, when Desiredio sees Albertina in a position of power, he says that Albertina has “put away all her romanticism” (Carter 235). By saying so, Desiredio is admitting that he has lost attraction to Albertina because she is no longer powerless and does not need Desiredio to care for her. When the object of the male sadist’s desire steps outside of the male sadist fantasy that sees women as weaker and always submitting to men, sadists are no longer able to claim that women enjoy abusive treatment and victimization, which causes the male sadists in both works to feel ill or lose interest.

In Men, Women and Relationships: A Post-Jungian Approach, Goss uses Steinbern’s term “basic split” to explain that there is a natural human tendency to categorize reality using binary values (Goss 33). With that in mind, the splitting of “sadist” and “masochist” into the binary categories “man” and “woman” can be shown as a by-product of the brain’s inner workings. Because of this, men and women are defined and characterized by radicalized and often antagonistic values, such as woman being part of “the world of ‘nature’” and men being “projects of ‘cultures’” (Ortner, qtd. In Chancer 130); men as masculine and women as feminine; and so on. If we relate the idea of “the basic split” to the idea of masochism as a male fantasy. We can see how “the basic split” can place objects, as well as subjects into dichotomization of norms that, though organized in a simplistic, easy way, creates the illusion that men can only be sadistic, masculine and purveyors of culture, while women can only be masochistic, feminine, and representative of nature. This is shown prominently in “Dead as They Come” as the character-narrator mentions that he “ha[s] been married three times, each marriage lasting, in chronological order, eight, five and two years” (McEwan 75). This shows that the character-narrator cannot discern between his fantasy of the masochistic woman and the reality that real women are not perfectly passive. This is why he falls in love with a mannequin—a “woman” who cannot have her own opinions, talk back or challenge him in any way. However, Helen and Albertina show, through their actions or inaction, that their prescribed gender role is an illusion. Albertina does this through being a high position of power within her father’s army and, even though Helen is a mannequin, the character-narrator still believes that she has whims of her own, leading him to become convinced she has cheated on him. The natural “basic split” is therefore used to the advantage of the patriarchal system, to benefit men, while leaving women at a disadvantage because the human mind will still associate sets of binaries (men being sadists while women are masochists) even if this categorization is not wholly true.

In conclusion, both Ian McEwan’s “Dead as They Come” and Angela Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman make scathing social critiques on the position of women within patriarchal society. The human psyche’s tendency to split categorical traits into binaries and fit those into the dichotomy of normalized gender results in the binary of masculine, sadistic males and feminine, masochistic females. Essentially, claiming that men, in their essence, are dominant and sadistic and women are submissive and masochistic appeals to “the basic split” that the human minds creates. Thus, the male sadist fantasizes the “perfect” woman to be passive and to enjoy the pain he inflicts on her, because it both excuses and normalizes his abusive behavior. However, this standard is both unreachable and unrealistic because women, like men, cannot be perfectly passive or dominant.