Filles Perdues? French Narrative in Search of the Maternal
2001; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/itx.2001.0010
ISSN2156-5465
Autores Tópico(s)Historical and Scientific Studies
ResumoIntertexts, Vol. No. 1,2001 Filles Perdues.^ French Narrative in Search of the Maternal Julia K. De Free A g n e s S c o t t C o l l e g e Elle se souvenait de tout ce que [sa mere] lui avait dit en mourant { L a Princesse de Cleves) [She remembered all that [her mother] had said to her while dying ] Ma mere, ma tendre mere, helas! je suis bien plus morte que vous. ... {Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise) [My mother, my tender mother, alas! Iam more dead than you. ...] I . French narratives written during the ancien regime are replete with tales of mother-daughter nurture and neglect.^ Within the context of the maternalanditsrepresentations,readersmayobserveamoreextensiveand philosophicalpreoccupationthatshapedearlymodernthought:thefascina¬ tion and reprobation of origin. My primary focus in this article will be on the problematic associations between subjectivity and questions of origin. Ioffertheviewthatjustasthesubjectseeksinthematernaltheinexorable knowledge of life’s end, language finds meaning only by confronting its own non-existence, or silence. In addition to the novels Ishall highlight in this article Lafayette s La Princesse de Cleves {\67%) and Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Heloise {17 6\)— the works of Laclos, Diderot, Graffigny, Beaumarchais, and Charriere de¬ pict stories of connection and separation from the mother. Iread these sto¬ ries in part as analogies for acultural exploration of the meaning of origin. Maternal control (Laclos’ Mme de Volanges), maternal indifference (the mother of Suzanne in Diderot’s La Reli^ieuse), the problematics of the stepmother (Charriere’s Mistress Henley), and scenes of maternal recon¬ naissance (in Graffigny’s Cenie and in Beaumarchais): all elucidate aphilo¬ sophical awareness of identification and rupture from biological and psy¬ chological origin. In speaking of the maternal and its place in these literary texts, Ishall necessarily focus on the theoretical association between the mother as ab¬ sent origin and the problem of the referent in language. Indeed, this associ¬ ation finds expression already in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for whom questions of origin, language, and the maternal are fundamental. Before offering my specific observations on the novels of Lafayette and 2 3 1 2 4 I N T E R T E X T S Rousseau, Ishall briefly consider the concept of inaccessibility as it relates to ideas of maternal and linguistic origin. Rousseau’s Discours sur Vori^ine et les fondements de Fine^alite parmi les hommes {VJ’oZ) ponders “the pure state of nature” from which only de¬ generation is the result (204). Integral to this hypothesis of culture as cor¬ ruption of nature is Rousseau’s analysis concerning the original need for language: franchissons pour un moment I’espace immense qui dut se trouver entre le pur etat de nature et le besoin des langues; et cherchons, cn les supposant necessaires, comment elks purent commencer as’etablir. ... a peine peut-on former des conjecmres supportables sur la naissance de cet art de communiquer les pensees, et d’etablir un commerce entre les esprits: art sublime qui est deja si loin de son origine. ...(204) [let us bridge for amoment the immense space that must have existed between the pure state of nature and the need for languages; and let consider, supposing they were necessary, how they were able to begin to be established. One can scarcely formulate acceptable conjectures as to this art of communicating thoughts, and establishing commerce benveen minds: sublime art that is already so far removed from its origins. ...] Language (in this context, speech) is by definition removed from its origin, and therefore falls far short of astate of perfection (“a une si prodigieuse distance de sa perfection”) (204). Language, Rousseau continues, can never reclaim its pure origin because it represents arbitrarily and thus only partially: “Essayez de vous tracer I’image d’un arbre en general, jamais vous n’en viendrez about, malgre vous il faudra le voir petit ou grand, rare ou toufiu, clair ou fonce, et s’il dependait de vous de n’y voir que trouve en tout arbre, cette image ne ressemblerait plus aun arbre” [“Try to trace for yourself the image of atree in general, you will never be able to completely, despite yourself it will be necessary to picture...
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