Then he falls in love with Villanelle, a love that’s not returned in the same manner and which ultimately destroys Henri
Last night I watched an episode of Homicide: Life on the Streets where Bayliss and Pemberton are investigating a death related to erotic asphyxiation, Lewis and Crosetti have a case revolving around a man who shot another man over a pen at the library and where Munch is troubled by Bolander’s happiness while dating a woman half his age. In its own way, it is very similar to Winterson’s The Passion.
With The Passion we are given two lead characters around whom many other characters orbit, Henri and Villanelle. Henri is a young Frenchman who joins Napoleon’s army and becomes the personal server of Napoleon’s meals, always chicken. His friends are Domino and Patrick; Domino who believes only in the moment, the future and past holding no power or meaning. Patrick is a former priest with one normal eye and one eye that has the ability to see perfectly for miles. His other encounter of note is with the Cook who is a drunk and is essentially removed from the Grand Armee for not doing his job, something he holds a life long grudge against Henri for.
Villanelle is a boatman’s daughter, a definition that, despite her father being deceased and her mother re-married to a baker, has a continuing significance throughout the story. Her orbit includes a woman with whom she has an affair with and who steals Villanelle’s heart as well as a husband who sells her to one of Napoleon’s generals and a man who wagers his life against a stranger’s and is sentenced to death by dismemberment, beginning with his hands which are delivered to the bar some time later, displayed in a box, and holding a roulette ball in severed hand and a domino in another.
Throughout the novel we are given different versions of differing passions that drive th existences of the varying characters. Napoleon seems to have this passion for indulgence. Beyond his attempting to take over the world and throwing his soldiers into meat grinders to win this article whatever battle he was facing he would also eat chickens whole and would attempt to re-shape whatever places he conquered to fit some image of his own design. It is what could be described as a very stereotypical male passion for dominance and control, a passion that ends in failure as Napoleon is ultimately defeated.
in a similar vein, though on a smaller scale, is the cook who we come to find has a similar passion for possession and control. And whoever challenges this passion finds themselves, as Henri does, to be on his eternal bad side. Though, like Napoleon, the cook ultimately meets with failure, also.
Henri’s friends, Domino and Patrick have very different, personal and less infringing passions. Domino’s is to simply live in the moment, regardless of what or where it is. His life motto can be summed up with a simple “Live for Now.” Patrick, meanwhile, seems to just want a drink, some eye candy and someone to tell his stories to. The lack of power or “fire” in either man makes it hard to label either as having passions, and it’s likely notable that both die in the novel before either of the central characters. But their lack of passion along with their relatively quick demises and, comparatively, painless lives could eventually be seen as a positive in relation to the pain of the passion misdirected of Henri.