The Thief's Journal: The Prince Of Thieves - Genet
Genet, the main character as well as author of The Thief's Journal,
revels with gusto in the abjection, poverty, and treachery of thievery in
order to introduce to this book's readers a new and gripping look into the
life of a social outcast and the subculture born of abjection. Although he
recounts experiences in the Guyana prison, his string of lovers,
prostituting on the streets of Europe, and the poverty in which he
flourished with disturbing and revolting accuracy, none of these
descriptions are told with any bitterness, shame, or resentment. All, in
fact, are either told in a tone of nostalgia, or with a hint of adoration
and pride, thus leading its readers to the realization that ...
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of his trousers. The lice
inhabited us. They imparted to our clothes an animation, a
presence which, when they had gone, left our garments
lifeless. We liked to know -and feel- that the translucent
bugs were swarming; though not tamed, they were so much
a part of us that a third person's louse disgusted us. We
chased them away but with hope during the day that the nits
would have hatched. We crushed them with our nails,
without disgust and without hatred. We did not throw their
corpses -or remains- into the garbage; we let them fall,
bleeding with our blood, into our untidy underclothes. They
were the only sign of our prosperity, of the very underside
of prosperity . . . (26)
This account of his life with Salvador can be gauged by most readers as
sickening, yet Genet succeeds in demonstrating how abjection can be as such
that an infestation of lice acts as a means of establishing exclusivity and
coupledom between two people, as well as a boundary that shuts ...
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of my strength, the employment and proof of
this strength. For I shall have broken the stoutest of bonds,
the bonds of love. And I so need love from which to draw
vigor enough and destroy it! It was in the army that I
witnessed for the first time (at least I think it was) the
despair of one of my robbed victims. To rob soldiers was to
betray, for I was breaking the bonds of love uniting me with
the soldier who had been robbed. (46)
It is not easy getting used to the idea that Genet seeks moral solitude
through treachery. It's a rather perverse notion of how one can attain
inner peace. His love for traitors and the severance of bonds of loyalty
are a way of ...
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"The Thief's Journal: The Prince Of Thieves - Genet." Essayworld.com. May 12, 2008. Accessed November 4, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Thiefs-Journal-Prince-Thieves-Genet/83499.
"The Thief's Journal: The Prince Of Thieves - Genet." Essayworld.com. May 12, 2008. Accessed November 4, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Thiefs-Journal-Prince-Thieves-Genet/83499.
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