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Le Feu follet: The Drug Addict as a Tragic Hero

1973; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 88; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/461323

1938-1530

Allen Thiher,

French Literature and Criticism

Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, like Malraux and other French writers of the nineteen thirties, saw the forces of history as a form of tragic fate. In Le Feufollet he sets forth the tragic destiny of a decadent drug addict who is a victim of his era's decline. Drieu's use of a Racinian structure creates a sense of overwhelming tragic inevitability, but, in the final analysis, his attempt at creating a tragedy based on the decadent's self-destruction is not entirely successful. Rather, the novel appears as an inversion of tragedy in which the glorification of nonbeing foreshadows Drieu's adherence to fascism.