There's no two ways around this: the speaker of "A Season in Hell" is just a wee bit racist. OK, so maybe he's a lot racist. In his hurry to reject Western civilization, he turns to some very essentialist notions of what folks in the East are like: savage brutes, bloody, and undeveloped. In his view, that's a good thing. He wants to pursue that kind of life and reject the conventions of middle-class France. But that doesn't get him off the hook for his racism. We mean, come on, man. There's gotta be a better way to reject social conformity than insulting half of the world's population.
Questions About Foreignness and 'the Other'
- What about the East, specifically, is so attractive to the speaker?
- What parts of the world does the speaker focus on in his fantasies of escape from Western civilization? What are his views of those parts of the world?
- The speaker also wants to flee modern civilization and return to the past. What about the ancient Gauls appeals to him?
- Do you think the speaker is consciously being racist in the poem? Why or why not?
Chew on This
The speaker's views of non-Westerners demonstrate how all racism is derived from ignorance.
The speaker's racism makes him seems ridiculous. We just can't take anything else he says seriously as a result.