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Robbe-Grillet's Use of Pun and Related Figures in La Jalousie

1975; International Fiction Association; Volume: 2; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0315-4149

Zilpha Ellis,

French Literature and Poetry

Pun in its broadest connotation is the metaphorical linking of two or more different meanings through a similarity between the sounds of words or phrases used to represent each of the meanings. For pun to occur, the context of the polyvalent sound must point to more than one meaning. Just as there may be varying degrees of similarity in sound, from homophony through paranomasia and from rime to assonance and alliteration, so too there may be varying degrees of explicitness in the linking of the vehicle to the tenor, from ellipsis (double entendre or significatio) through syllepsis to traductio and adnominatio. The prestige of the figure has been erratic since the neoclassical era, perhaps because the comic genres have lost the importance they had during this period. The Romantic movement, with its program of spontaneity and sincerity, brought pun and its related figures into disrepute. Although the Symbolists were interested in the allusiveness of sounds, only Verlaine made pun a significant part of his poetic expression. And the diminishing importance of rime in our century has robbed pun of one of its main supports in poetry. However, the skilled use of pun and related Figures for complex ironic effect by such writers as Apollinaire, Raymond Queneau , Samuel Beckett, and Eugene Ionesco, to name only a few, is a strong indication of the resurgence of these figures. One of the high points of this resurgence occurs in prose in Alain Robbe-Grillet's La Jalousie: for the novel's structure is based on pun to a degree that is perhaps unprecedented in the history of the genre. The variety of patterns on which sound similarity is established is as extraordinary as the unobtrusiveness with which this is accomplished. It is probable that this unobtrusiveness has resulted in the use of pun being an unexplored aspect of Robbe-Grillet's narrative art, an aspect that I now wish to examine.