The Balcony

“You have no idea of how we really feel. You observe it all from a distance” 

Carmen tells Irma that even though she is in charge of the brothel, she does not understand the girls who work for her, because she operates at a remove. It is a common condition of power relationships that the more powerful party lacks the ability to empathize with the less powerful. 

“One can hear all that’s going on in the street. Which means that from the street one can hear what’s going on in this house” 

There is a strange disconnect in this statement. It is impossible to hear everything that is going on in the street, because Irma has soundproofed the rooms. And it is impossible for those outside to hear everything in the brothel, because providing discretion is one of the brothel’s purposes. The quote is an unconscious reminder for all of the characters that they are vulnerable. 

“Do they keep their revels in a house of illusions, tucked away in the back of their heads in miniature form, far off? But present?” 

Carmen implies that the mind of each man is another version of the brothel. Each mind is its own house of illusions, capable of visiting distant places, future and past, but also trapped in the present, in a literal physical location. 

“You’ve got your feet on the ground. The proof is that you rake in the money. Whereas they…their awakening must be brutal. No sooner is it finished then it starts all over again” 

In the world of the women, results are concrete and definable, like money. Therefore they have a way to measure their successes. For the men, who live in the world of fantasy, the fantasy can never be satisfied to the extent where it goes away. When the men realize this, Carmen believes it should give them cause for despair. 

“They all want everything to be as true as possible…minus something indefinable, so that it won’t be true” 

Irma is speaking about the fantasies of men. She implies that real truth cannot be defined by specifications and requests. There is an indefinable truth beyond what can be provided or asked for. It seems the men know this as well. If they left anything to chance, anything unaccounted for in their fantasies, it would be too close to reality for their comfort. 

“When you start glorifying yourself as soon as you hear the word whore, which you keep repeating to yourself and which you flaunt as if it were a title, it’s not quite the same as when I use the word to designate a function…but let it illuminate you, if it’s the only thing you have” 

Until Irma becomes the Queen, the only people who are allowed to benefit from titles are men. Irma tells Carmen that, even though she sees herself as having the identity of a whore, as her boss, Irma does not consider it a true identity, because Carmen is doing it as a job. 

“He’s no man. He’s my stage-prop” 

It is the women who define the men, or who allow the men to briefly experience the identities they wish they had. The men rely on Irma for the consolations of her services, and she relies on them for their money. But it is obvious that she has a more valid type of power. She can view them as props. They cannot do the same with her. 

“If the rebels win? I’m a goner. They’re workers. Without imagination. Prudish and maybe chaste…” 

The play implies that debauchery requires imagination as well as desire. The rebels—interchangeable with workers in this instance—lack imagination because they are focused on a cause beyond their own needs and pleasures. They would have no need of the Grand Balcony. 

“The pimp has a grin, never a smile” 

Irma looks after the girls who work for her, but because they are also commodities to her, she cannot afford to be sentimental with them. A smile is genuine, but a grin has less authentic connotations, or potentially different motives. Irma grins at her girls the way a butcher might grin at his cows. Even though he may feel affection for them, they are there for his profit. 

“Your function isn’t noble enough to offer dreamers an image that would console them” 

Irma understands that the men who come to the brothel are not looking for pleasure, but for consolation. No one wants to impersonate a Chief of Police, because the position has no absolute power. It cannot redeem as the Bishop can. It cannot pass sentence like the Judge. It cannot kill like the General. 

“The rebellion is a game. From here you can’t see anything of the outside, but every rebel is playing a game” 

George insists that the rebels have their own fantasies, which he views as a game. Every game has rules. The rebels outside the brothel and the characters within it are not so different, but they do not know the rules by which the other group is playing. This is an example of the tension that can exist between oppressors and the oppressed, as well as of the conscious and subconscious aspects of the mind. 

“They don’t care a rap about me. But without them I’d be nothing” 

As a former prostitute, Chantal is accustomed to being used uncaringly. Even now that she identifies with the rebels, and not with the workers at the brothel, her meaning is still defined by how others see and use her. 

“All I have is a hoarse voice and a face like an owl’s. I give or lend them for hatred’s sake” 

As a prostitute, Chantal lent (or gave) her physical attributes to men who hated her, or who hated what she represented to them. Now that the rebels want to use her likeness, she is suspicious. She still suspects that donating her likeness to another’s ambitions might be for the sake of hatred, no matter how benevolent the cause claims to be. 

“They may keep you, Chantal. They’re strong—strong as death” 

Roger, even though he is a rebel, realizes that he would rather keep Chantal for himself than turn her over to the revolutionary cause. He sees the rebels as a sort of finality—turning her over to them, making a symbol of her, is a deathlike act. It will in some way be the end of who she currently is. 

“Your sweetness and tenderness are such that they make you as hard and stern as a lesson” 

Even though Chantal no longer works at the brothel, Roger views her—and women in general, ostensibly—as teachers or lessons, objects from which men can learn. His implication that lessons are necessarily hard and stern is aligned with Genet’s bleak view of humanity, and suggests that this is why people are so reluctant to learn and change. 

“Everything beautiful on earth you owe to masks”

The Queen’s Envoy is the most cynical character in the play. Not only does he speak in riddles, refusing to cooperate in any sort of cogent discussion, he states that not even the impression of beauty can be trusted. Anything beautiful is buried beneath a layer of deception.

“So I’ll be real? My robe will be real? My lace, my jewels will be real?” 

The thought of being able to play the Queen excites Irma. Sadly, what she considers “real” is false. If people believe her to be the Queen, then it is real enough for her to feel an authenticity that the rest of her life is lacking. 

“We have to invent an entire life…that’s hard” 

When the Bishop, the General, and the Judge play their roles on the balcony, they realize that living outside of fantasy is hard. It is notable that they cannot even think of their lives as things to be lived, but see them as things that must be invented or fabricated. 

“It’s a true image, born of a false spectacle” 

What is “true” in the play is whatever people will accept as real for a time. Something false can give birth to something true as long as it is memorable and palatable for the populace. When they no longer agree that it is true, it will become false for them. 

“History was lived so that a glorious page might be written, and then read. It’s reading that counts” 

This is an incredibly cynical statement. For the characters, the meaning of human lives is not to be found in the lives themselves, but in what others (readers) say about those lives later. Life is not to be found in the present, but is viewed as the act of creating history. 

“So long as we were in a room in a brothel, we belonged to our own fantasies. But once having exposed them, having named them, having proclaimed them, we’re now tied up with human beings…and forced to go on with this adventure according to the laws of visibility” 

Fantasy begins in the mind. In this way, it is always a solitary activity at the start, even if the fantasy requires other people to fulfill itself. Fantasy is a way to avoid cooperation in society, because society is made of human beings. Visibility is the cost of living in society, and therefore is the death of fantasies that one would hide from the public.  

“Are you going to use what we represent, or are we going to use what you represent?” 

There is almost no genuine human affection in the play. Other people are to be used. In fact, it is not even other people that are to be used, but what those people represent. The Balcony systematically reduces people to their uses. They have no other worth. 

“The Queen attains her reality when she withdraws, absents herself, or dies” 

The pursuit of immortality is best accomplished by death or absence. Death—and the absence created by a death—are the only things that all of the characters will eventually have in common.