Love as Surveillance

Desire and Power in "Ruth", by Lou Andreas-Salomé

Abstract

Originally published in 1895 and now available in Portuguese in the exquisite translation by Inês Lohbauer (Editora Meia Azul, 2025), Ruth, the debut novel by Lou Andreas-Salomé, interlaces literary, philosophical, and social critique, to explore the entanglements between affect, formation, and domination. Through the relationship between a young orphan and her enlightened tutor, the novel exposes how the discourse of care functions as a technique of subjective normalization, shaping desire and silencing resistance. Written with stylistic restraint and psychological depth, Ruth anticipates key discussions in contemporary feminist theory — such as gender performativity, the pedagogy of consent, and pastoral power — while proposing a mode of resistance marked by withdrawal from recognition. This review offers a philosophical and literary reading of the novel, drawing on psychoanalysis, critical theory, and gender studies, and highlights its relevance as an aesthetic and political critique of the subtle mechanisms of affective tutelage and the disciplining of feminine subjectivity.