"Justine" or "The Misfortunes of Virtue"

       "Justine" or "The Misfortunes of Virtue" is a short novel by Marquis De Sade. He is known for his twisted imagination and it is from his name that the term "sadism" originates. That being said, I had imagined his works to be particularly amoral in the sense that there is absolutely no care for morality. However, once stumbling across "Justine" I entertained the idea that his works were immoral in the sense that they promoted vice over virtue. But even there I was wrong. Rather, this work makes a moral argument.

       The novel begins with two sisters, Juliette and Justine. There is another novel altogether for Juliette, but she is important in this story as well. In the beginning, their parents die, leaving the two sisters (about 15 and 12 respectively) orphans in France. Juliette, aware of her beauty and uncaring for virtue, decides to become a prostitute, despite Justine's objection to such a sinful life. The two sisters go their separate ways to live very different lives.
       Justine's character is fundamentally virtuous and very pious. Throughout the entire novel, she is almost the only virtuous character. She is also the only character who consistently has bad things happen to her. A great portion of the men that she encounters only want to sleep with her, whether she is willing or not, as they all believe that women only exist to please men. Because of this, there is an overwhelming amount of sexism in the novel. The men all try to justify it using arguments based on their view of nature. However, I would argue that the novel itself does not support sexism. Not only are these men often described as cruel by the narrator, who seems to be reliable and omniscient, but their arguments are also described as false sophisms many times throughout the novel. Even more so, the final paragraph of the novel, where the narrator addresses the reader directly, expresses a hope that the reader has reached the same conclusion as Juliette. That conclusion is that virtue is the only path to true happiness, and that virtue is its own reward. This is where Marquis de Sade perplexed me. 
       After all that had happened, from the first rape in the woods by a man that Justine herself had saved from bandits, to the convent of monks that held her (and many other girls) prisoner as a sex-slave, to the woman who sells her to a man who takes enjoyment in decapitating beautiful young women, I was not expecting it to have such a moralistic conclusion. The evidence that Marquis de Sade gives for the misfortune that is being virtuous is compelling, but the novel concludes that regardless of all this suffering, it is still the best option. All the happiness that those men exact from Justine and other poor unfortunate souls is false in some way. Somehow Juliette, who had actually succeeded in her endeavors and was not subjected to the terrors that Justine was subjected to, decides that her old life, one of pleasure and money, is wrong and the book ends with her decision to join a convent and repent for her sins. Something about seeing her miserable, but virtuous sister, caused a sudden shift in her person. She stopped being able to sleep because of it. Juliette became tormented by the pleasurable, but sinful, life that she had led. Even Juliette's affection for the man that Justine had thought Juliette's husband wasn't strong enough to make her forget about her idea to go off and live in a convent. However, the deciding action is a thunderstorm, during which, Justine is struck dead by lightning. 
       Justine, I find, is almost a Job or Jesus character in the sense that she is upright and pious, and stays true to virtue and God, but is subjected to intense suffering regardless. In the case of Job, God regards him as upright and pious, a man who does no wrong and is very virtuous, but at Satan's suggestion, God allows Satan to take everything away from Job and make him suffer terribly. The virtuous suffers almost unexplainable misfortune there too, except at the end of that story, Job is given everything back, most of which is returned doubled. This leads me to the Jesus comparison, where Justine suffers all this misfortune almost as if to allow others to benefit. She too becomes an example of goodness amongst the sinful and hopeless. Unlike Jesus, however, she is completely mortal and human. She has no idea of the future and so walks into traps completely unknowing, whereas Jesus knows ahead of time that he will be betrayed but goes into it willingly. Finally, the most compelling part of the comparison is the final part of Justine's story, which is her death and the result. Just like Jesus' death, her death allows for her sister to repent and become virtuous as well. It is as if all of the sins that Juliette committed were buried with Justine. I never thought I would be saying this about a Marquis de Sade book, but it's beautiful in that way.
      Before I finish this post, I want to remind you of the final line of the novel, or at least a paraphrased version of it. Virtue is its own reward.

-Zero