Here’s How a Monster Is Made

Albeit reluctantly, many have experienced some sympathy for Dominique Strauss-Khan when he became the protagonist of the feuilleton in New York. The allegations that were raised against him were serious, and his austere face seemed to persevere despite the blow that had been struck to the hubris of this powerful man placed at the top of the world economy.

The urgency with which he had left the hotel to go to the airport — resembling an escape — also played against him. But the way the media pilloried him wasn’t nice either: The rigor of justice, presented in its impartiality, seemed to result in an obsession that obeyed the gasp of the old Puritan America. Perhaps Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, would probably find – with sadness – something to say.

Now we are facing a plot twist. Strauss-Khan has not been acquitted of everything. He can’t leave the United States yet, but the house arrest was withdrawn and the $6 million bail was returned. The latter is a signal that is quite significant in a country and society that give due weight to money. The fact is that Ophelia, the waitress who was allegedly raped by the lustful French economist, has shown throughout the investigation to be dishonest in many ways, to have shady acquaintances and to have conspired with a friend in prison for profiting from her “misfortune.”

In any way, her character comes out compromised. She had become the Coryphaei of a civil battle that had all the right ingredients. Think about it: a poor immigrant from Guinea who makes a living as a waitress becomes the victim of extremely rich and overpowering man while doing her job. It was enough to mobilize, as was the case, the working class, to stoke the egalitarian and feminist drives which were already very alert in the U.S.

If the situation turns, if the rape turns out to be a consensual relationship that Ophelia intended to build on, we will evidently be witnesses of the mechanism that leads to the creation of a “monster.” In this case, apart from the fraud of Ophelia, it would have taken place with the best intentions and, it must be said, with the collaboration of the incautious victim, the real one. But that does not diminish the sense of skepticism and general disenchantment. The story is not uncommon, of course, but it becomes original because of its consequences – the earthquake caused in the political and financial world from the intemperate Mr. LDK.