Georges Querelle

Georges "Jo" Querelle (French pronunciation: ​[ʒɔʁʒ kəʁɛl]) is the protagonist and antihero of Jean Genet's 1947 novel Querelle de Brest.

Character overview

A sailor on the cargo ship Le Vengeur, Querelle is also a thief, a prostitute, an opium smuggler, and a serial killer. While he ostensibly kills for money, his real motive for murder is the sheer, liberating pleasure he experiences from it; he kills to feel alive.

Sexuality

While most of Querelle's sexual partners are men, he is more aroused by power than by people. Genet writes that Querelle views sex as an act of either domination or submission, and so treats his partners as objects that exist for the sole purpose of enacting his sadomasochistic fantasies of power and punishment. He has at least a passing interest in women; in one of the novel's main conflicts, he competes with his brother, Robert, for Madame Lysiane, Robert's mistress and the proprietess of a brothel they both frequent. Even then, however, Querelle's pursuit of her is completely self-serving, a ploy to get the best of his brother.