The Girl: I've come here to get rich. Im an exotic dancer. Very well known at home.
My manager is at this very moment securing us proper room.
In this quote, near to the beginning of the play, Baartman, aka the 'Hottentot Venus', is presented as a woman in charge of her own destiny. For example, the use of the first person pronoun implies ambition and self-control. The short sentences give her a powerful aura and she is not afraid to throw in a possible boastful comment - 'Very well known at home'.
The Girl: Gold, sir?
The Brother: Come to England. Dance a little.
The Girl: Dance?
The Brother: Folks watch. Folks clap. Folks pay you gold.
The Girl: Gold.
The Brother: We'll split it 50-50...Half for me half for you. May I present to you "The African Dancing Princess!"
In this passage, Baartman (The Girl) is in conversation with a South African man (The Brother). He is trying to persuade her to travel to England to perform and earn money there. This is a disturbing dialogue because it shows the true nature of power relations between man and woman. Baartman calls The Brother 'sir', and his obsession with money ('Folks pay you gold' and 'We'll split it 50-50') makes him out to be a pimp, someone who wants to exploit Baartman so that he can become rich himself. The line 'Folks watch' also raises the question of gaze and power - who is looking and who is being looked at.
The Baron Docteur: Dont look! Dont look at me.
Look off
Somewhere
Eat yr chockluts
eat em slow
thats it
Touch yrself
Good.
Good.
In this passage the audience is made aware that the Baron Docteur is masturbating over Baartman. His insistence 'Dont look! Dont look at me. / Look off' is evidence of the power of the gaze throughout the play. His imperative verbs - 'Look off', 'Eat yr chockluts', 'Touch yrself' - mirror his position as the more powerful character in this duo. This is another disturbing scene for the audience as Sarah Baartman is presented as an object of erotic lust for perverse male desire.
The Brother: Behind that curtin just yesterday awaited:
Wild Female Jungle Creature. Of singular anatimy. Physiqued
in such a backward rounded way that she out shapes
all others. Behind this curtin just yesterday alive uhwaits
a female-creature
an out-of towner
whos all undressed awaiting you
to take yer peek
This speech is spoken near the beginning of 'Venus'. In it, the audience is given a description of Sarah Baartman which evokes the racist and misogynistic discourse that surrounded her life. The fact that she is 'Behind that curtin' forces the audience to view her as a spectacle, something to be looked at. The noun 'creature' and adjectives 'wild' and 'jungle' suggest she is Other and threatening and that her femininity needs to be domesticated and "civilized". The fact that she is 'all undressed awaiting you / to take yer peek' is another example of power relations in the play. If someone is naked and being gazed it then they are in a weaker position of power in relation to the person who is clothed and doing the gazing. Alongside her feminine otherness the statement that she is 'an out-of towner' implies that she is not from here and that she is racially different.
