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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sarrasine is a novella written by Honore de Balzac. It was published in 1830 (the same year as he published La Peau de Chagrin), and is part of his Comedie Humaine. The descriptions are all binary: inside/outside, cold/warmth, gaiety/gravity, and, most notably, masculine/feminine. The use of these antithetical elements illuminates Balzac's symbolic manipulation of extremes, which is significant since the story explores the notion of a bipolar gender system. The story of La Zambinella is one of androgyny and mistaken identity-as a young castrato in the Opera, this character throws into question both masculinity and femininity as well as heterosexual vs. homosexual desire. When the Parisian artist Sarrasine falls in love with La Zambinella- thinking that the castrato, who plays female roles in the Opera-- is not only a woman, but the perfect woman-he does not realize that he has fallen into a kind of homoerotic scenario.

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