The Venus is able to exercise agency by taking up with The Baron Doctour, despite this initially being his proposal. Venus’s presence in his life (and bed) makes a very public statement by gambling a power exchange of social norms and reputations. The Doctour is asked multiple times by The Grade School Chum to leave Venus and return to his wife and his “senses” (Lori-Parks 1.12.113).  Instead, The Doctour stays with Venus longer than a year, exposing himself to constant scandal which also threatens the potential popularity of any “research” to come: THE BARON DOCTOUR.  “But, I I love her. I love her!! (Lori-Parks 2.9.131).

 

Venus holds the power of desire over The Doctour in such a way that he willingly risks his family and career.  Her sexuality itself is a subversion, because it reveals that in her natural, naked ability, The Black Woman Venus is a desirable, sought-after, sexual being.  She is a Divine Feminine.  This is more than can be said for The Doctour’s miserable wife, who remains at home, alone, in full knowledge of The Doctour’s mistress.  Venus receives a higher social rank than The Doctour’s wife, not even because of the white male Doctour’s authority in this society, but rather because of Venus’s own ability to masterfully wield the male gaze with autonomy,  enticing and maintaining intrigue in at least two different countries. Venus’s body is an aspect that society is simultaneously obsessed with, but cannot openly admit to itself.  Her outward appearance threatens the Eurocentric cultural mores of “beauty” in a rude unveiling of what is actually desirable, but of which society has narrated onlookers to be ashamed of in their own desire towards.  She reflects back the perfectly internalized conflict of what Larson recounts as “white narcissism” upon itself (37).  Venus pulls back the curtain of what ideal beauty is, and, even still, the society’s self-inflicted self-loathing is what causes it to bully her back.  It is her performance within the male gaze that allows her to inflict its self-destruction, as seen by her being called to court.  Venus has agency because her presence, in its rawest form, causes absolute chaos.  Her entrance into a country upends its every-day, its family structure, and its imposing, stringent sense of “decency” (Lori-Parks 1.20B.64).

 

Venus’s power can be witnessed most clearly by its impact on other people, and in this case, by her laughter at a specific type of hysteria:

 

THE BARON DOCTOUR.  “You were just yrself and crowds came running.  I was fascinated and a little envious but just a little.  A doctor cant just be himself no onell pay a cent for that.  Imagine me just being me. 

 

THE VENUS. “Hahahahahahaha.” (Lori-Parks 1.14.103).

 

Or, in another example, when The Bride-to-Be resolves to “become” the Hottentot, in order to even be considered desirable by the man who married her (Lori-Parks 2.12.122).  In other words, the white woman, socialite-wife of The Doctour, has become an extinct category of desire within the realm of the play, submitting to the precedent administered by Venus.  As put by activist Kimberly Jones, “we don’t own anything” in her speech, “How Can We Win?” Venus derives ownership of her own commercialized and politicized body over those whose perceptions crumble when faced with its immanent confrontation(s).  Venus has power because of her own objective realization that she IS power. This itself is a resistance, a protest against those in whom it incites rage.

 

 

Lori-Parks “grants [Baartman] her powers and rights” as she represents her “as a resurrected figure in a stage drama,” much like--in terms of “resurrection”--Jesus Christ (Garrett 79). In Venus, resurrection is cyclical. Not only does Lori-Parks revive Baartman through the theatrical Venus, but Venus remains an immortal presence in the play. This passage from Venus underlines Venus’ eternal life. While the players repeat that “The Venus Hottentot iz dead,” she continuously reappears throughout the show (1.1.129). In a more physical sense, Venus continues to live as “The Docteur put her corpse in his home” (1.1.166). There is no “tail end of their tale”; the play loops, representing Venus’ immortality. Scenes and lines from the first act are replicated in the second. Evidently, The Venus cannot die -- her agency and command over the players is too powerful. 

“Tail end of our tale for there must be an end

Is that of Venus, Black Goddess, was shameless, she sinned or else

Completely unknowing of r godfearin ways she stood

Totally naked in her iron cage 

She gaind fame and fortune by not wearin a scrap

Hidin the only privates lippin down from her lap.

When Death met her Death deathd her and left her to rot

Au naturel end for our hot Hottentot.

And rot yes she would right down to the bone

Had not The Doctor put her corpse in his home.

Sheed a soul which iz mounted on Satans warm wall

While her flesh has been pickled in Sciences Hall. ” (1.1.156-168)

In the first nine scenes of the play (including the overture), Venus only has sixty lines. Nearly every single one is merely one or two words, or a repetition of something that another character has said. Between her meeting Mother-Showman in Scene 27 and her confident demands in Scene 22, Venus has only twelve lines (most of which are her counting). Scene 22 is pivotal for Venus. She starts with, “You hit me hard the other day” (Page 50). Even without seeing that line performed onstage, it is a clear warning to Mother-Showman to not do that again. Then comes the matter of payment where Venus argues that, as the headliner and moneymaker, she deserves her fair cut: “We’re all paid equal but we dont draw equal” and “yr other freaks are second fiddles” (Page 53). At this stage in the play, Venus has actively taken control of her situation by demanding better pay, food, clothing, and housing. Any further action by Venus is, as Larson writes, “subversive agency” for Venus has decided she can control her own fate.

While his malevolent intentions are not revealed to Venus before he whisks her off to Paris, the Baron Docteur provides another moment for Venus to shape her destiny. She decides to leave with him, again making known her aforementioned demands. The Baron agrees and Venus travels with him as two particular lines on Page 87 stand out: “I like rich,” she says of the Baron, and, “Do I have a choice?” Unlike the beginning of the play where she was mislead and lied to about England, Venus does have a choice here (in some aspects, because leaving exploitative slavery as part of a freak show isn’t really a hard decision to make in the moment) and she chooses to escape the freak show for money and better living conditions. To be clear, going with the Baron as a science experiment was not a good decision, but the alternative was significantly worse. So, while Venus by no means is free or even safe, she has actively chosen to take the better path out of all of her terrible options. If she is going to be exploited, Venus may as well say, she will choose how it happens.

The power of capitalism is inescapable and it’s maintained solely through hierarchy, enslavement, and by those at the top siphoning off money from the working class. It is impossible for Venus, as a black woman in England, to not be exploited. Her only option is to subvert the capitalist control over herself by standing up to Mother-Showman with her stipulations and, eventually, leave with the Baron Docteur because he provides her with these necessities. Though, in a final critique of capitalism’s failure, Venus dies of exposure because the basic human needs for warmth and proper housing were not met. Brutally, the audience and reader have to ultimately wonder about the difference in degrees of exploitation and whether or not Venus’s agency still renders her (and Suzan-Lori Parks, the audience, and everyone affiliated with this work) complicit in the play’s situations.

In other instances, The Venus was able to articulate the very needs that she felt was necessary for her to carry on. Particularly the scene with The Mother Showman and even with The Baron Doctor where she tries to advocate for more money, food, clothes, and better treatment. Lori-Parks does a good job at showing us the vulnerabilities of The Venus juxtaposed with the subversive agency that she does portray throughout the play. As a reader, I noticed the different ways in which The Venus tries to overshadow her difficult entrapment and sees what little hope she might have to have a normal life with The Baron. Although, they don’t see her as anything more than a test subject and profit, The Venus tries her best at separating the horrors that she faces and the normal life that she expects. As we think about the concept of complicity I can’t help but emphasize that The Venus was unable to fully be complicit in a situation where she may or may not have control and instead combats that with the demands that she believes will give her a sense of control. 

Despite not protesting  in the face of mistreatment, the Venus exercises agency in her quiet observations. 

It is in her silences in the face of mistreatment that she is able to create a sense of familiarity and navigate a terrain that she has some kind of control over after being left stranded in unfamiliar terrain. 

In scene 25, the Mother Showman tells the Venus that her ability to read “puts her a bit above the rest”, so she now has another form of leverage to assert agency despite the limited arena she is offered. The Venus also takes note of the crowds she attracts and the money that brings in. Even while suffering dehumanization, the Venus takes that fact and uses it to negotiate better conditions. She understands her body is being commodified but given the circumstances, she knows she can take back some of the power she has as an attraction to leverage better pay, food, clothing, and a lock on her door. She even threatens to leave, knowing Mother Showman will suffer loss without her cooperation. (42)

 Despite the negotiations ending without resvolve, this powerful scene shows us that the Venus is smarter and more aware of her position that those who reduce her see. 

She goes back and forth with Mother Showman in this scene, which in itself is an exercise of power. To stand up to someone who has the power to organize your life and environment using knowledge you have acquired in the silence of your resilience may not initially seem like a radical exercise of agency- yet to know her worth in a situation made to demean her shows that the Venus had expectations about her worth and value that she didn’t let go of despite her existence being organized around humiliation and subjugation. 

Subversion in Larson’s article functions as a way to maintain one’s humanity and autonomy, allowing those who subvert power to therefore be almost separated from it. In Venus’ story, her choices and the simple act of making a choice is her own subversion. Larson believes that the act of choice is inherently subversive to the culture of which Venus was a part: one that attempted to remove all humanity from black women. In Park’s play, and throughout the history of post-colonized black women, the role of the black woman is to be touched, seen, and laughed at. What does this mean? It means that her role is to be taken advantage of, controlled. 

Venus, then, by choosing to be touched and viewed, choosing to leave her home, choosing to be taken by the Baron Doctor, choosing to say that she had a choice in front of a jury allows her to push back against the shame that is attempted to be placed on her. As Cooper writes in Eloquent Rage, “so much of our history has not been up to us,” meaning that for their entire lives and collective history it has been absolutely necessary for black women to continuously assert their autonomy. They are told to “pack light,” because, at any time, their lives could be upended, but are also simultaneously forced to carry this generational and physical baggage of being a black woman. 

In Venus, there is a parallel of choices: who has real choices and who must create them. The Baron Doctor, when asked to place Venus into jail so that she will fall ill and die, allowing her to be dissected, asks, “Do I have a choice?” (Act I, Scene 7, p.142) He does. He makes the wrong one. As a white man, he has always had choices available to him, he will never be sold into slavery or prostitution and his only fear is the disappearance of his “reputation.” Venus, however, asks this same question over and over throughout the play: “Do I have a choice?” She asks it before she leaves her home, she asks it again when the doctors purchases her (Act I, Scene 17, p. 87), (Act I, Scene 31, p.17). She does not have a choice; her choice is between a literal rock and a hard place. However, she makes the assertion that she does indeed have a choice, and she is making the choice to not return home penniless, because that would be the true shame. 

Throughout the play, Venus uses her sexuality as power over the men who abuse and exploit her. The concept of shame is under contention throughout this play, the idea that what she is doing is shameful is repeatedly mentioned by those around her. However, Venus does not see her actions as shameful, due primarily to her choice in acting. To go home, as I said before, would be the true shame, and that is where she makes her choice. 

Venus’ agency throughout the play allows her to subvert the power that is being exerted over her. Although some have argued that these choices make Park and Venus herself complicit in her own exploitation, her actions instead remove her subjugators' power over her body and her life.

If we refer to the box of chocolates and the trip to Paris as distractions, the Baron Docteur used distractions to get Venus on board with his “adventure.” After finishing the play and taking a moment to discover what this scene means, I see the statements made by the Baron Docteur as deceptive ploys to lure Venus into his “trap,” so to speak. The men in this play use their power and privilege to navigate the lives of women. The Baron Docteur is another example of someone who latches onto the fallacy of truth, and the truth he believes is that Venus respects his authority.

The first quarter of the opening scene is Venus “closing the door” on the Baron Docteur, refusing his compliments. It was not until he degraded her with his tone and introduced distraction that Venus’ responses started to shift. For example, the opening lines of the scene read,

 

            Who’s there.

            A friend.

            Im yr biggest fan.

            No––

            I find you fascinating.

            No––

            Not like that, Girl.

            Im a doctor.

            “Doctor.”

            Understand?

            The Venus

                        (Rest)

            The Venus

                        I understand.

            The Baron Docteur

            Ive brought you chockluts. Here.

            You like?

                                    *He gives her a red heart box of chocolates.

            The Venus

                        I like.

 

(1.17.85-86)

 

I cannot help but point out that for the entirety of the play, Venus is seen but rarely heard. The few lines she shares in this scene aren’t heard until she agrees with the Baron Docteur – he persisted until he received what he set out for; appreciation from Venus, unknown of what he has set in store for her. I wonder if Venus’ acceptance of the distractions is a display of her agency to overcome – to agree with the Baron Docteur to avoid something worse?