The Failure of Leo’s Signs

in Kerouac’s The Subterraneans

by Skylar Hamel

 

Throughout Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans, Leo Percepied evaluates his brief love affair with Mardou Fox. However, Leo consistently attempts to define and categorize Mardou in contradicting ways; he attempts to minimize her worth as a woman and as his partner in order to justify dismissing her. Leo manipulates signs of Mardou’s gender, race, sexuality, and independence to distance himself from her.

Leo uses gender constructs as a means of limiting the significance of Mardou as a woman. He thinks to himself, "there's an essence, and that is your womb" (Kerouac 110), and speaks of "the warm lovemouth of the woman, the womb, being the place for men who love" (Kerouac 76). In these two quotations, Leo is reducing women to a single body part. The signifier he chooses, "womb," can also suggest alternative signs. The womb is both essential to reproduction and the source of an infant's protection; in his idealized woman, her significance must be both sexual and maternal. However, use of the womb image limits the woman in that both of her potential sources of importance require either the man or the child. For Leo, men are significant in their own right, even to the point where he changes the semantics of "male" by elevating it to a verb. Conversely, Leo does not attribute to women a significance of their own. This lack of importance is emphasized throughout the book with the use of the repeated adjective "little," which is employed from Leo's first encounter to the very end of their relationship. Mardou is the “little thin brown woman" with a "little soft brown face" and a "little secretive intimacy" (Kerouac 11). Leo uses language to diminish Mardou by making all aspects of her little: her gender, her body, her intimacy, her fears, her dignity, and her love. At one point Leo eliminates all parts of Mardou beyond this adjective as he "sweep[s] her littleness off her feet" (Kerouac 99). She is less than the "little woman"; she is "littleness" itself.

Beyond the direct constructs surrounding Mardou's gender are those addressing her race. Throughout their relationship, he classifies Mardou as exotic by describing her in relation to other races. Leo points out frequently that Mardou is both African American and Native American, but he extends his qualification of Mardou as an “other” by attributing to her a variety of different heritages without regard to her actual ethnicity. Leo describes Mardou during her flip— "in Mardou's eyes now the eventual Kingdom of Inca Maya and vast Azteca shining of gold snake" (Kerouac 25). He has internalized his image of her as the idealized early American, as revealed during their discussion of the brooch Mardou bought. She describes the brooch as "this iron thing" but Leo responds "a dull gold beautiful it would be" (Kerouac 27). He imagines her in gold in an earlier description, and transfers that image to her real-world purchase. Leo cannot see Mardou as simply what she is, as he continues his description of her eyes, “and temples as noble as Greek, Egypt, the long sleek crack jaws and flattened noses of Mongolian geniuses" (Kerouac 27). He expands the concept of "Indianness" to take in many pagan cultures. Yet, in an apparent contradiction, she also "look[s] so strange, like a --like someone in Paris" (Kerouac 107) or walks around "looking like a little Polish underground girl" (Kerouac 99). The signifiers don't directly relate to the signified Mardou; the sign suggesting foreignness can connect both. The theme in his descriptions is that of otherness: Mardou can reflect any race or nationality because in Leo’s racist worldview she has to be fundamentally different, an “other” in some way.

Leo's views of Mardou are inconsistent describing her sexuality as well as her race.  Leo emphasizes the sign "sexual" throughout the book, but contradicts his applications of this term toward Mardou. In his pursuit of Mardou, even her shoes are of "such sexuality looking greatness" (Kerouac 3). In his capture of her, she has been "unsexual in her entire life” (Kerouac 17). Leo disregards the cases of Mardou recounting to him how "she'd risen out of his [Adam's] satisfied sheets" (Kerouac 23). She can be a sexual creature only when Leo sees her as one, as he grants himself the power to define her. Mardou is both "sexy" (Kerouac 46) and the "innocence of my [Leo's] activities" (Kerouac 55). She is, in his mind, both nonsexual (in her history) and slave to her sexuality (when Leo is jealous). Once more, during the course of their relationship Leo transforms his repeated descriptions of Mardou into a deprecating image of her, as he had done with the term "little." Leo describes running out after giving Mardou money for food: "as if the whore'd made me for two bucks and I was sore" (Kerouac 74). Leo manifests his doubts about their relationship through deprecating labels, like "whore,” which by use of “the” rather than “a” he applies directly to her person. Her sexuality is transformed into something demeaning.

The racial and sexual constructs combine to emphasize Mardou as the other, most visibly in Leo's choice of the signifier "grape." Twice after sex Leo describes Mardou with that term, "grape little sweetbody naked on the restless sheets" (Kerouac 17) and "burrowing little grape body around" (Kerouac 39). Grape by itself has no sexual meaning; the word signifies a type of fruit. It achieves a new meaning in the text when compared to another term of Leo's time: "cherry." A cherry, a fruit of similar size and shape but a different color, can mean a person, a virgin, or can refer to female genitalia (“Cherry,” def. 5b-c). By using "grape" to describe a sexual creature rather than the clearly defined "cherry," Leo highlights Mardou's otherness. A typical metaphor can't apply; he has to create a new one for her. The source of this descriptive term could be the obsolete definitions of grape that Leo could have encountered in Bromberg's library (a hook, an anchor, or a vulture (“Grape”). However, the term has renewed importance in light of Leo's first confession to Mardou: "I thought I saw some kind of black thing I've never seen before, hanging, like it scared me" (Kerouac 45). Later, Leo and Mardou "examined said body and looked closely and it wasn't anything pernicious . . . just bluedark as in all kinds of women" (Kerouac 46). Leo's two views are contradictory in that he calls her, upon first examination, the same as everyone else, but describes her in later sexual encounters as "grape," emphasizing how she could be construed as different. This contradiction wouldn't be significant if he did not use it as a means of maintaining "doubts" (Kerouac 52). He has constructed a difference where there is none, as a justification of his low measure of her worth.

Mardou's stated independence, like her sexuality, is exploited by Leo through manipulation of signs. He states, "from the first Mardou was indeed self-dependent and independent" (Kerouac 9). This signifier fails to encompass the true character of Mardou, and contradicts his other descriptions. Mardou is also described as "humble meek Mardou" (Kerouac 59) who is reduced to "a nice convenient dog chasing after [Leo]" (Kerouac 53). She leaves decisions in Leo’s control, saying, “baby, it’s up to you” (Kerouac 39). If Mardou leaves all the choices in their relationship up to Leo, she is not as independent as her label suggests. The failure of Leo's labeling of Mardou as independent appears in the insult, “Wanderingfoot" (Kerouac 44). As Mardou walks away from Leo at a bus stop, he creates a signifier to represent both Mardou’s physical action, and to symbolize Mardou’s independence and inconstancy. The signifier fails to accurately reflect Mardou, as her behavior is actually an act of consideration and protection of Leo as she leads him to a warmer place to wait. The sign is wholly inadequate, but allows Leo to further demean Mardou even for that which he would praise: her independence or her devotion.

Leo's problem is not that he arrives at his mistaken beliefs, nor is it that he misapplies labels; Leo cannot correct his misconceptions while he still has Mardou, as exemplified in the “thief” insult. Leo criminalizes the theft of his heart by Mardou so that he can remove any responsibility on his part for his relationship (Kerouac 49). To this end, Leo constantly questions Mardou about an accusation of theft to which she has already proclaimed her innocence. In a separate incident involving Mardou being left alone with Jack Steen’s bag, Leo doesn’t pay attention to the reality of the situation and maintains for two months (the span of their entire relationship) the idea that she had without permission searched the possessions of someone else. Now that the relationship has ended, the “doubts, then, all gone” (Kerouac 50). Leo has no reason to consider Mardou a thief after they’ve separated; the doubts and the labels are no longer necessary.

Leo uses signifiers that disconnect with his intended signified. Mardou is more to him than just a "womb," and she is in no way a "little" part of his life. She cannot be both sexual and asexual simultaneously, nor can she be signified by all words foreign or outside the norm. Mardou is not independent nor is she meek, and although Leo can call her "thief" or "Wanderingfoot," Mardou is neither. When the relationship is ending, "there was a new loss, a new Mardou even" (Kerouac 65). The constructs haven't quite fallen away, but Leo’s views begin to change. He begins to find old ideas sounding false, stating, “I didn't believe it, myself, any more" (Kerouac 85). Leo uses his words to construct an image of Mardou that is worth less to him, but his signifiers are wholly inaccurate. Consequently, he underestimates her worth until their relationship ends, and he no longer needs to maintain distance between them.

Works Cited

“Cherry” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.

“Grape” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.

Kerouac, Jack. The Subterraneans. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1981.