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Form As Theme: A Study Of Andre Gide
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Form As Theme: A Study Of Andre Gide
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72-11,916
DAGHISTANY, Ann Abernathy, 1942- ^
FORM AS THEME: A STUDY OF ANDRE GIDE.
University of Southern California, Ph.D.,
1971
Language and Literature, modem
University Microfilms, A X E R O X Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
^ ^ C o p y r ig h t by
ANN ABERNATHY DAGHISTANY
1971
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN NICBOFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED
FORM AS THEME: A STUDY
OF ANDRE GIDE
by
Ann Daghistany
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillm ent of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Comparative Literature)
August 1971
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CA LIFO RN IA
TH E GRADUATE SCH OOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANOELES, CALIFORNIA # 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
Ann Daghistany
under the direction of h§I. Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Gradu
ate School, in partial fulfillment of require
ments of the degree of
D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y
a ^ J ° .......
D&m*
Date ^ ? d ! * * * y f / * / A / U l i ...........................................................................................................................................#
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
C “
....................
PHASE M O T E:
S o m pagan hav# in d is t in c t
p r in t, F ila a d as racalvad .
UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS.
PREFACE
Fiction is an amorphous art. Despite its refusal to comply
with any definition, It usually expresses, no m atter how covertly, some
signs of form and them e. To speak, for exam ple, of the form of a
novel is to suggest those boundaries of beginning and end that make the
work a distinct entity, as well as the am plification of its subject or
them e. Sometimes a novel will appear, which takes itself, and its
identity as a work of art, as a subject. In this case we can speak of
form as th em e.
The phenomenon of form as them e is a hallmark of the fic
tion of Andr6 Gtde. Others before him were tantalized by its possibill-
l
ties. In Don Qutxote and Madame Bovarv. Cervantes and Flaubert
l
In the dram a, these possibilities were explored through the
interior play. As Robert Nelson explains, "T he play within a play
reflected the predicam ent of Renaissance man, self-conscious man, man
conscious of all doubt. The theater provided an introspective mirror for
his doubts, reflecting them in that ‘literary form of self-consciousness
called the play within a play . . . the play within a play is the theater
reflecting on itself, on its own paradoxical seem ing.' Nelson's source is
F . S. Boas, "The Play Within a Play,” one of a series of papers on
Shakespeare and the Theater by Members of the Shakespeare Association.
The H av Within a Plav: The Dramatists* Conception of his Art (New
Haven: 1958), p. 10.
ii
wrote novels about the flctlve universe, novels which questioned the
accepted order of their literary ancestors. Diderot, Sterne and Fielding
wrote novels dealing tangentially with the writing of novels in lacaues
le fata list e. in Tristram Shandv. and in Tom tones. A contemporary of
Gide, James Joyce, wrote novels about writers: Portrait of an Artist as
a Young Man. and Ulvsses. These works criticize themselves in their
self-contained reflections on novel writing. Perhaps the most unusual
experiments with form as theme take place in three of Gide’s works:
Les Cahters d ’Andrd Walter. Paludes. and Les Faux-Monnayeurs. He
wrote other works of fiction, including the rdcits or tales: L'lmmoraHste
(1902), La Porte dtroite (1909). Isabelle (1911). La Svmphonie pas
torale (1919), Llfcole des femmes (1929), Robert (1929), Genevidve
(1936), and Th6s6e (1946). In addition, he produced three soties or
satirical farces. The first to appear was Paludes (1895), which we will
exam ine. The others were Le Prom6th6e mal enchain^ (1899) and Les
Caves du Vatican (1914), The only work to which he attached the name
of novel was Les Faux-Monnaveurs. which was published in 1926.
Besides his fiction, Gide produced criticism, drama, poetry in verse and
in prose, descriptions of his travels in Africa and Russia, correspondence;
such miscellaneous items as Corvdon (1924), Souvenirs de la cour
d ’Asslsses (1914), and St le g a in ne meurt (1926), and, of course, the
incomparable Journals.
ill
The works of this prolific m an have inspired others to com
pare him with the greatest figures in the history o f literatu re. Ernst R.
2
Curtius described him as the most subtle literary pioneer of his tim e ,
and recounted his im portance in Germ any after the wars as the most
Influential interpreter of France: “ II e ta lt devenu le grand Europ€en
3
frangais, pratlquant Goethe com m e Shakespeare et D ante.” R . M .
Alb£res com pared Gide with Shakespeare, on the basis of their m utual
concern for the m aterials of the hum an spirit and what these m aterials
4
are able to produce. Alb6rds also com m ented upon G ide’s m odernity:
“ routes les intentions qui ddfinlrent le rom an nouveau existent ddj& chez
5
G ide.” The lesson of G ide’s work, according to GaetOn Picon, con
sists in Its im age of m an ’s potential without divine aid but utilizin g
every human resource. Picon also wrote:
. . . the sole am bition of Andre Gide is the perfect posses
sion of a ll th at is hum an, through the agency of him self:
that em inently classical proposition, the knowledge of Man,
as reseen through the perspectives of a m odem individual
ism —Rousseau added to Pascal. The concern for the
enquiry, for the docum entation itself becom es exclusive of
all other concerns.7
2” A m itie de G ide,” Horn m age & Andre Gide (Paris: 19511
p . 13.
3P>id. . p . 14.
4L*Odvs6e d ’Andrg Gide (Paris: 1951), p . 31.
5 M etam orphoses du Rom an (Parts: 1966), p . 34.
6Panoram a de la N ouvelle L lttdrature Francaise (Paris:
1960), p. 22.
7” The Presence of Andr£ G ide.” Gide (New Jersey: 19701
p . 38.
Iv
Gide attracted both friends and enemies among his contemporaries.
8
Glono remembered him as P&re Gide, yet together with the respect
communicated by this memory, Glono recalled the simplicity that
9
characterized him . Roger Martin du Gard was inspired by Gide's kind
ness and sensitivity, for instead of disparaging his writing Gide would
say, “Voici comment vous auriez fait, vous, si vous avlez et£ dans un
10
de vos bons jours.” Martin du Gard repaid Glde's kindness when he
portrayed Glde's Les Nourritures terrestres as a formative elem ent upon
one of his characters, Daniel de Fontanin, in his own popular novel,
1 1
Les Thibault.
Gide's enemies denounced him from two camps, the estab
lishments of Catholicism and Communism. Justin O'Brien, Gide’sfriend
and editor, writes:
His whole Communist experience, to be sure, rather paral
lels that with the Roman Catholic Church. The moment he
left the tabernacle, to those within he became an enemy
and they cast anathema upon him. Andre Gide thus enjoys
the perhaps unique distinction of figuring high on the Index
Llbrorum Prohibltorum of two great rival organizations,
both universal in scope.1 2
8“ Lundl,” Hommage & Andrg Gide. p. 206.
9 Ibid.
1 0 ,,1 Notes (1913-1951)," Hommage A Andre Gide. p. 181.
U
David Littlejohn, Introduction, Gide (New Jersey: 1970),
p. 2.
1 2
Portrait of Andre Gide (New York: 1964), p. 332.
v
Some Catholic critics such as Francis Jammes, Henri Gheon, and
Charles du Bos, were disturbed by their obligation to denounce Gide for
his open deviations from conventional religious and social practice, on
account of his generosity to them . In one instance, Gide him self bore
13
the costs of publishing their work. Others like Fran£ois Mauriac and
Henri Massls were outspoken in their disapproval, while Claudel went
14
so far as to call him a poisoner. On the occasion of the condemnation
of Gide's works by the Catholic Church, L ’Osservatore Romano printed
these comments:
We must, finally, characterize and denounce his particular
poison: the pleasure he took in feeling himself reproved
(see his constant reflections on it); in corrupting, soiling,
affirming what decent men deny, and denying what decent
m en—even at the cost of their lives— affirm
Gtde’s attraction to communism won him the praise of Ilya
Ehrenburg, Jean Gughenno and Louis M artln-Chauffier. Yet when Gide
published “Retour de l ’U .R .R .S ,” in 1936 and exposed the deficiencies
he found in the Soviet system, the French marxlst Louis Aragon called
16
him an agent of fascism. Previously he had been censored by jullen
13G. W. Ireland, Gide (New York: 1963), p. 104.
t4Claudel-Gtde Correspond a nee 1899-1926. with preface
and notes by Robert M allet (Paris: 1949), p. 249.
1 5 Trans, by David Littlejohn, Gide. p. 32.
16Iustin O'Brien. Portrait of Andrg Gide. pp. 106-107.
vi
Benda as an intellectual traitor because he ventured to speak his politl-
17
cal opinions during the years Im m ediately before World War I.
Despite these attacks Gide continued to win favor and
influence. Jean Paul Sartre praised him for his service to contemporary
literature:
It was he who raised it from the worn groove of symbolism.
The second generation of symbolists were convinced that
the writer could only treat, without loss of dignity, a very
small number of subjects, all very lofty, but that within
these w ell-defined subjects, he could express himself any
way he liked. Gide . . . taught or retaught us that every
thing could be said—this Is his audacity—but that it must
be said according to specific rules of good expression—that
is his prudence.“
Upon his death Camus wrote, "L e secret de Gide est qu’ll n ’a jam ais
19
perdu, au m ilieu de ses doutes, la flerte d ’etre homme,” and Frangois
Mauriac wrote later,
Inim itable Gide! With what feints and passes he always
managed to ward off his heavily armed opponents! With
what ease did he overthrow them one by one, and leave
them sprawling in the clang and clatter of their Maurras
breatplates, their Thom 1st panoply, while he, so nimble
in his Mephlstophellan cloak and doublet (or was he not,
rather, Faust, disguised in the devil’s castoff clothing?)
stepped over their prostrate bodies, and hastened to his
pleasures or his reading.20
p. 25.
17
Ibid. . p. 333.
18"T he Living Gide.” Gide (New Jersey: 1970), p . 17.
19
"Rencontresavec Andrg Gide.” Hommage & Gide. p. 227,
30 “ The Death of Andre Gide," Gide (New Jersey, 1970),
vii
As Gide approached death, his love for literature, which
had earned him criticism during his lifetim e because it had seemed
excessive, delighted his friends because it did not decline with his
physical health. Following a night of severe pain he revealed to Martin
du Gard that instead of pondering his own state of collapse he again
investigated a favorite passage in Vergil's poetry and to his pleasure he
2 1
discovered a nuance which had hitherto escaped him .
This love of literature is expressed in his work by his atten
tion to each detail of literary activity. Form becomes them e in his
work when theories of form and discussions of its practice inhabit his
pages. Yet the three works of Gide examined in this dissertation show
form becoming them e in a more fundamental sense than simply that of
topic or subject of discussion. Because each work contains the seeds of
an interior novel the relation between outer and inner novel presents an
opportunity to explore the areas of reciprocal novel form and m aterial,
art and reality, the essence of farm as opposed to the vehicle of form.
2 1
“ Notes (1913-19511" Hommage ft Andre Gide. p. 277.
vlii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFA C E...................................................................................................... ii
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1
Chapter
1. THE DREAM IM A G E ....................................................... 1
Form as Theme: Aesthetic Preoccupations . . . 14
Form as Theme: The Dream Im a g e ....... 20
2. THE MIRROR IM A G E....................................................... 35
Form as Theme: The Book within a Book . . . 47
Form as Theme: The Mirror I m a g e ....... 54
Form as Theme: The Aesthetic M irro r........ 65
3. THE BOOK AS L I F E .......................................................... 76
The Plot and the Aesthetic S itu a tio n .................. 85
T h e m e s ...................................................................... 88
Them atic Im a g e s .................................................... 99
Form as T h e m e ....................................................... 105
Form as Theme: Prose Techniques.......... 108
Form as Theme: The Book of L ife .......... 122
CONCLUSION . ....................................................................................... 137
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................... 143
ix
CHAPTER I
THE DREAM IMAGE
Les Cahlers cTAndrg Walter appeared In 1891. It bore the
1
subtitle “oeuvre posthume.” Glde’s name was not associated with the
work until 1892, when he acknowledged it as his own. The notebook
2
form of the work belongs to no distinctly defined literary tradition
although it shares several qualities of the journal and fictionalized
diary. Like rne journal the notebook presents a first-person narrative
viewpoint with an emphasis on introspection The notebook also shares
with the journal its distinction from the memoir, for the memoir is
t
Cbuvres completes d ’Andre Gide. ed. L. Martin Chauffier
(Paris: 1932), I, xvi. The page numbers in this chapter will refer to
Vol. I of this collected edition and will be given in parenthesis in the
text to enable the reader to see where the quotation appears in Gide’s
work. Chapter II will also refer to this volume.
2
Another designated notebook, Benjamin Constant s Le
Cahier rouge, differs from Gide’s work because it contains autobiography
without fictionalized elem ents. Its title was taken from the color of
the binding. Glde*s friend, Roger Nartin du Gard, entitles part one of
his novel Les Thibault “ Le Cahier gris.” The grey notebook belonged
to the schoolboy, Jacques, and it was confiscated by his teacher. Again
the title was taken from the color of the binding. In Gide’s work, how
ever, the division of black and white bears symbolic overtones of per
version and purity, grief and happiness.
1
composed from a distance In tim e and thus its events are presented in a
more unified fashion than those of the more im m ediate records of the
journal and notebook. The notebook deviates from the journal, how
ever, in the sense that the journal is autobiographical. In this respect
the notebook more closely resembles the diary-novel or fictionalized
diary such as Sartre's La NausSe. While the narrator of the journal may
be one of many character types, Andr6 Walter, the narrator of Gide's
work, follows this pattern:
The commonest type of diary narrator is the lonely, unhappy
human being who cannot attain contact with others and turns
inward upon him self.3
On the other hand, Les Cahiers d*Andr£ Walter does not employ the
narrative tim e of the fictionalized diary. It does not seek “the epic
situation of the diary novel proper,” the chronological recording of
4
events. Instead, the notebook narrator Andrg moves freely between the
past and present without transition.
Les Cahiers d*Andr£ Walter is divided Into two sections: Le
Cahier blanc. sixty-three pages in length, and Le Cahier noir. eighty-
four pages. The external action of the story, the events In sequence in
3
Bertil Romberg, Studies in the Technique of the First-
Person Novel (Stockholm: 1962), p. 44,
3
Le Cahier blanc. Is lim ited to the death of Andre’ s mother and her last
request that Andre refrain from marrying his cousin, Emmanu&le. At
the end of Le Cahier blanc EmmanuSle marries T . , the husband whom
Andres mother had preferred. The death of Emmanuele occurs in the
first half of Le Cahier noir while the death of Andre himself ends the
work. The plot, as we shall shortly see, concerns the psychological
movement of the main character towards the suicide that ends the work.
The psychological movement of Le Cahier blanc develops Andre’ s
increasing love for EmmanuSle, his attem pt to attain spiritual unity
with her, his realization that no other type of unity is desirable or
possible between them , and, as a reflection of his effort to comm uni
cate his emotion to her, his decision to write a novel which he will call
A llain. Le Cahier noir deals with the progressive deterioration of the
narrator’s mind as a result of his preoccupation with the duality between
the carnal and the spiritual, the beast and the angel, the body and the
soul; his subsequent identification with Allain, the hero of his novel,
and, finally, his insanity and death as a result of the internal battle
between the beast and the angel.
The struggle between the beast and angel creates the major
them atic image of the plot, for the strength of Andre’s effort to realize
only the angel in him self succeeds In developing a suppressed beast of
equal intensity. The beastly desires gradually contam inate and ulti
m ately conquer the spirit of Andre. The death of the body occurs after
4
the death of the mind in a madness engendered by the intensity of the
struggle. Religious doubts perm eate Andr€’s thoughts at the same tim e
that he records the impending madness of his projected double, Allain,
the main character of his book. Andre speculates upon the epitaph,
“C l-glt Allain qul devint fou parce-qu'il crut avoir une am e,” and adds,
“ C'est & cause du Christ que nous sommes fous” (163). He wonders
whether anyone can deny that the soul regrets life (169) and whether it
is his fault if God is a traitor (171). He declares that continence is
depraved and then castigates himself for blasphemy (171). Andre iden
tifies his confusion with his double Allain and thus, at the moment of his
own madness, he declares that he has won while Allain is mad: "Je ne
le suis pas encore” (173), Derangement leads to physical self-
destruction as he wanders into the snow to die (175).
The them atic image of the struggle between angel and
demon is reinforced by a Biblical motif, taken from Genesis, of Jacob
5
and his struggle with an angel. The Jacob m otif appears five times
and is central to the meaning of Les Cahiers because it contains the
other basic structural motifs that link the story together.
According to the Biblical account in Genesis (Chapters 25-
32), Jacob deprived his brother Esau of his birthright and the blessing of
their father Isaac. Jacob obtained the birthright when he demanded that
5
Cbuvres com pletes, pp. 49, 126, 132, 134, 172.
5
Esau, hungry after a day of hunting, sell the birthright to him for a
bowl of food. Esau lost the blessing of the ailing Isaac when Jacob,
disguising his arms with goatskins to sim ulate Esau’s hairy limbs, drew
near his sightless father and pretended he was Esau. For these acts
Esau hated his brother, and Jacob went away from Beersheba to live with
his uncle Laban in Haran. After many years Jacob, although fearful of
his brother’ s wrath, decided to return to Beersheba with his wives and
household. Jacob’s wrestling with the angel took place the night before
his dreaded reunion with Esau, after he had retired in solitude to the
desert. The angel could not conquer him although he wounded Jacob’ s
thigh in a mysterious m anner. Jacob would not release his hold until
the angel blessed him .
That Andre Walter envisions the wrestling match between
Jacob and the angel as a symbol of the fight between the angel-soul and
the demon-flesh Is made clear in the second specific reference to the
Biblical struggle, to which Andrg adds the com ment, “C ’est cela: la
chair humili£e sous l*ameTrU>mphante” (126). This allegory is a projec
tion of Andre’s own internal conflict. The mysterious Bible story yields
other meanings as well, also pertinent to Andrg’s dilem m a.
The angel who docs battle with Jacob has been 9een to repre
sent God as well as Satan. Where the angel represents God, Jacob’s
struggle becomes symbolic of internal strife, ’’the soul’s struggle after
6
6
an apparently withdrawing God.” According to this version Jacob,
alone In the desert and fearing the reunion with Esau, prayed for God's
blessing and spiritual strength. The struggle with the angel is analogous
to the agony of the saints who, in the despair of doubt, seek to recapture
the presence of God after He has seemingly abandoned them . This
reading brings into focus Andre’s own pleas for a blessing from God,
entreaties which serve as linking phrases to support the Biblical motif:
Seigneur —ayez pitie de mol (121).
Eternel! mon Seigneur! ah! faites-vous connaltre! (139)
Tocher de croire —et puis se lam enter— et puis encore (168).
Tais-toi mon am e (171)!
The angel has also been viewed as Satan who allied with
Esau against Jacob. Satan could not conquer Jacob in the match because
Jacob was given the strength of both Isaac and Abraham. Before he
would release his grip on Satan, Jacob demanded again the blessing he
had taken from Esau. This allegory suggests a parallel to Andre's ver
sion of the struggle between the Satanic flesh and the spiritual soul of
Jacob. The outcome of the struggle signifies to Andre the victory of
Jacob as Identified with the soul. Insofar as the soul represents the prin
ciple of God in the fight against the flesh as the Satan principle, the
reader might expect Andre to indicate that the victor is the God princi
ple within Jacob. Andre does not make this distinction. He consistently
6
Lewis Johnson, The Legends of Israel (New York: 1924),
p. 101.
7
refers to Jacob as “ le vainqueur,” and by so doing he reveals a subtle
stress not only on the personal, individual glory of the patriarch, but on
him self by extension, for he Identifies with Jacob. The fact that Andr6
perceives him self in this relation to the patriarch may be seen in the
first appearance of the Biblical motif, in the entry of March, 1886,
where Andrg describes the monastic life he would like to pursue, his
sole occupation that of reading the great works of religion and
philosophy;
. . . ma pens£e se sentirait orguellleusement vivre. Des
debauches de science, d ’ou l ’esprlt sortirait stup£fi£,
bris£, comm e Jacob de sa lutte avec TAngel, mats com me
lui vainqueur, (49)
In this statem ent Andr£ recognizes that his spirit will em erge broken but
does not state to what degree the victory will be devoid of pride. In a
later passage the reader will note a further comparison of his internal
struggle to that of Jacob, a comparison made indirectly through the
com bat imagery of wrestling, in which the personal glory of victory is
elaborately drawn:
c ’est sublime cette lutte dans le noir — seul ft seul, corps
ft corps—et l ’orgeull parfols me souffle au visage d ’arro-
gantes ivresses aprfts les victoires. Quand elle ne prosteme
pas, elle est 6trangement grandissant, cette lutte, c'est
l ’gpreuve souveraln qui consume ou qul m agnifle. Quelle
fiertg, Seigneur, que Vous m ’en avez jug£ dlgne! (132)
The specific, em phatic words "orgueil,” “arrogante,” “ flert£," together
with the sense of ego that emerges in the last statem ent, are clear
8
symptoms of the sin of pride. The exact word “orgueil,” a repetitious
label functioning to underline this trait of Andre’s character, is seeded
throughout many of Andrd’s reflections so that the reader will not fail
to note its growth:
. . . ce qui domine, c'est l ’ orgueil d'avoir vaincu (29).
On souffre, mais Torgueil de vivre puissament sauve des
ddfaillances v ).
. . . mon orguetl en hurle de rage, mais je ne suis pasabattu (68).
At the end of Le Cahier blanc. Andrd speaks aloud the prospect of self
esteem which draws him to virtue. The goal he once sought for
EmmanuSle has now become his own:
L ’estlme de soi-m em e: le contentem ent dans Tame!
la splendeur de la virtu, que d'abord je cherchais
pour toi, m ’dblouit peu & peu et m 'attire elle-m em e (81).
in a devious distortion of the Platonic ladder of love, his ascendance
toward God is premised upon what can only become a descent. A short
tim e before Andrd loses his mind, he preducts not only that God will
bless him , but that he will be given the palm of glory, a glory akin to
the personal “glolre” :
N 'est-ce pas, mon Dieu, que Vous me bdntrez? . . . et
Vous, Vous rdpondrez: II a bien com battu-donnez-lui
la palme de glolre. (160)
The motivation behind Andrg’s desire to realize only the angel In him ©If
is inextricably tangled with pride, a pride so luminous that it blinds him
to its origin within the “demon” side, in his own philosophical
9
terminology, of his dual nature.
There are warnings against such a course of action present
In the story of Jacob as well as In Andr6’s own life. The first chrono
logical appearance of the Jacob m otif in Le Cahier blanc occurs textu-
ally in the im m ediate proximity of Andre's remembrance of the percep
tive warning his mother had given him: ”Tu ne peux pas faire la vie &
ton reve" (126). The fact that Andre thinks of the Biblical struggle in
connection with his m other's admonition serves to emphasize for the
reader the im plicit warning contained in the Biblical account of Jacob,
a man of superior strength and am bition. While it is true that Jacob
was victorious, the reader will remember that during the physical com
bat the angel deformed Jacob's thigh, in a manifestation of the angel's
supernatural origin as compared to Jacob's mere humanity. The wound
ing of the thigh serves to remind Jacob that he is only mortal and must
keep his place. In context with the wound as a warning, the thigh itself
7
may be seen to be a euphemism. This interpretation bears many startl
ing parallels to Andre W alter. His attitudes towards Emmanudle in Le
7
Other literary uses of this kind include the incident in
the m edieval myth of Peredur, in the manuscripts of the Mabino-
gion, where Peredur is struck in the “thigh” by the knight Kay.
10
8
Cahier blanc reveal, in fact, a physical im potence. He writes, "Ton
corps me gene et les possessions charnelles m ’^pouvantent" (68), and
again,
Pour ne pas troubler sa puret6, je m ’abstlendrai de toute
car esse— pour ne pas inqul6ter son am e—et meme des
plus chastes, des enlacem ents de main . . . de peur
qu’apr&s elle ne desire davantage, que je ne pourrais pas
lui donner, (81-82)
Andre reveals a sense of relief that Emmanudle has married someone
else. He refers to his m other’s last wish and notes that it served only to
9
separate him physically from Emmanu&le:
Tu n ’as pu s£parer que nos corps, puis tous trois nous sommes
reposes en la serenite de la vertu suivie (89).
8
Interestingly, the image of an angel, so Important in Les
Cahiers. has been associated with homosexuality. Raymond de Becker
details the background of this association as follows: "F em ale angels
are virtually unknown. But that is undoubtedly because woman,
according to the myth, was never able to contain man, whereas
woman was taken out of a m an. The original Adam was a her
m aphrodite. Eve never was. So the angel is a man, having realized in
himself the woman who was taken from Adam. Having attained com
pleteness, he is no longer concerned with earth. . . . Homosexuality
and the ‘ third sex’ are angelic states. The angel is no longer a man.
He is still not a god. He is caught between two worlds and he suffers
for it ” The Understanding of Dreams, trans. Michel Heron (New York:
1968), pp. 304-305.
9
Jean Delay’s penetrating analysis describes G lde’s own
homosexuality as "angelism .” By this he means making the woman an
angel, too pure and respectable for sexual intercourse. This attitude,
compounded with Glde's tendency to make of all respectable women a
mother figure, is held responsible for the predominance of angel figures
in his works. The Youth of Andre Gide. trans. June Guichamaud
(Chicago: 1963), pp. 220-225.
11
In the fourth appearance of the Jacob motif Andrg suggests
that his flesh-demon may conquer the angel:
Et ce qul vaincra son esprit, ce ne sera pas 1'Esprit, de
peur qu'il ne s'en glorifie, nl l ’ange de Jacob. Mais
Thecla l'im pudique, parce que Dieu a choisi les choses
viles de ce monde pour confondre les sages. (134)
The ambiguity of the "son” and its referent reflect the uncertainty of
Andre's m ental confusion. As he predicted, the “beast” wins the battle.
The point of victory is passed when a carnal vision entices not Andre's
flesh but rather his spirit:
Et puis les desirs se dgpravent; c'est tr£s curleux, ce
qui ce passe: la chair est mome, indiffgrente; Tesprit
seul se debauche, mais alors furieusement . . . et qu'y
faire? (170)
The final appearance of the Jacob motif presents a direct
quotation of Genesis, 32, 24-31, the entire Biblical account of Jacob
and the angel. Here it is metaphorically evident that Andre's outcome
In the struggle will be different from that of Jacob, the long-lived and
successful patriarch. AndrC repeats the phrase, “ Un ange vient qui lutte
avec lui jusqu'au lever de l'aurore,” and adds, significantly, “Oui, la
fin se dessine, d'autant plus que v o id l'hiver et que justement l'autre
soir tl netgeait” (172). Whereas Jacob's struggle had ended with the
coming of dawn and light, seasonally analogous to the coming of spring
and a rebirth of life, Andrg's struggle will end In winter, the season of
darkness and death.
12
The linking image of snow is added to the angel motif to
unify the conclusion of Les Cahiers. In Le Cahier blanc. the first pas
sage of the Jacob sequences begins this them atic link as Andre describes
how he will master the flesh through the discipline of reading, through a
run in the mountains, “ou peut-etre dans la niege profonde se plonger"
(50). In Le Cahier noir Andre first mentions snow as he relates his walk
in the hills above the valley of Thornes, where he sees in the distance
streams, villages, mountains, snow, and “Bluffy — nom de fiord, frlleux,
boreal, bleu de brumes" (108). Later he notes, “Bluffy—un nom de
glacier, d ’avalanche, une chute bleue dans le niege" (168). Snow is
mentioned next in the final quotation of the Jacob passage which we
have examined. Then Andre describes a death in the snow, giving the
precise details that prelude his own death. The link between angel and
death is tightened by the correspondence drawn between snow and angels
through the symbolic color white, which is used as a repetitious label.
Andr£ meditates, “ Le manteau blanc, la cuculle blanche" (143), and
prays,
N’est-ce pas, mon Dteu, que vous me donnerez votre
manne cach€e et le vetement blanc que vous gardez
aux purs . . .
In his mind he associates snow and angels:
peut-etre dans la neige profonde se plonger, et trouver
dans ce contact glac£ un frisson extraordinaire. . . . Le
blanc manteau que vous gardez aux anges. . . . (173)
13
The white m antle of the snow Is seen also as the white m antle or wings
of the angels; their whiteness Indicating a purity not of this earth. The
use of the verb "gardez” in the above two passages echoes the note of
warning. The white m antle of purity is not only reserved for the angels,
It is also guarded. This warning is strengthened by the last mention of
angels in a question that carries the connotations of a threat, "Ne savez-
vous pas que nous jugerons les anges? (St. Paul)” (174). The textual
emphasis on the Jacob m otif and its warning, and the development of the
angel-snow-death them e point not only to the failure of Andrg to conquer
the beast-dem on of his flesh but also, as we have seen, to the unnatural
results of his attem pt.
In Le Cahier blanc Andr6 briefly alludes to Pascal in a list
of authors that he and Emmanufele read and admired (33). This allusion
furnishes the major source of the angel-beast them e, to be found in Pas-
10
caps maxim , “Qui veut falre PAnge fait la Bete.” One of Andre’s
notations on the subject of his novel Allain poses the same dichotomy as
the maxim: "Deux acteurs: PAnge et la Bete; ad versa ires — l*ame et la
chair” (94). The Important word to note is "Bete” in connection with
Pascal's phraseology, for in contradistinction to "angel" the word
"demon” m ight otherwise have been chosen.
1 0
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was the author of Les Fens6es
(1670), an apology for the Christian religion. The maxim is to be found
in this work.
14
Form as Theme: Aesthetic Preoccupations
The confusion in Andre's goal of becoming an angel per
sists throughout the work in another sphere as well, in his occupation of
writing. Andre's numerous interrogations into the purpose and process
of writing em erge as a major them e, the theme of aesthetic preoccupa
tions. This theme may be subdivided, for the sake of clarity, into
Andre's three concerns: with words, the media of literary art; with
music as a possible alternative art form, and with writing as a creative
process. Here form becomes them e in the sense that all aesthetic con
siderations of medium and process are formal considerations, yet they
are not necessarily structural in nature.
Andr6's concern with words commences early in Le Cahier
blanc with Andre's frustrated attem pts to express and describe his em o
tion. He deduces from this frustration that words are profane and that
emotions are "trop pures pour etre parlies" (28). A subtle echo of his
failure to com plete Allain and to expurgate his beast can be detected in
the fact that, long after his initiation as a writer, he has not deviated
from this opinion: "ce que j ’ai senti, ce que je sens encore, ne peut pas
se dire" (118). The need to record his feelings on paper compels him to
search for a precise em otional vocabulary, yet the difficulty of this
search is compounded by a philosophical distaste for words. Andr6 is a
dualist, but he does not make the traditional Platonic dichotomy between
15
mind and m atter. Rather, he allies both mind and m atter on one side
of the polarity as opposed to the soul and emotion on the other side.
M ind-matter, or reason-body, thus becomes the corrupt opponent of the
spiritual soul-emotion. Indeed, Andr£, under the influence of Schopen
hauer's Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. defines the soul In terms of emo
tion as "la volonte aim ante” (57). Because of this dichotomy Andre
rejects words as tools of the mind and the enemies of emotion (62). He
is dissatisfied because words do not stand in a one-to-one relation with
the various Shades of feeling; he does not realize that such exact signi
fications are made impossible by the connotatlve, multi-associative
quality of words.
Andre's philosophical distaste for words extends to the area
of epistemology, for he believes that the word only runs after the idea
(155). Words handicap the ability to think, a faculty disdainful in itself
because it misleads the soul.
On the other hand, in his experience with Emmanuele,
Andre discerns the power of words to evoke emotion:
Car ce n'etait pas le mot seul; pour nous, 1 1 avait sa lggende
et la meme, 1 1 gvoqualt des emols passes, des lectures, et
quand nous 1'avlons dit, et quand nous l ’avions lu: ce n'etait
jam ais le mot seul, c 'etait un rappel d'autrefois. (63)
While he rejects words as profane, the rejection is not categorical, for
Andre has distinguished between the capacity of words to evoke em o
tional response and their power to convey precise feeling. However, he
16
has failed to relate the two perceptions; for If words were able to con
vey or denote precise feeling, the same words would lack the connota-
tive quality that elicits associative response. Moreover, Andrg seems
to grasp only dimly the importance of words in his own dualistlc system.
By their very links to both reason and emotion, the opposite poles, words
may be discovered to be a bridge between the body and the soul.
Just as Andrg regards words as Inadequate vehicles of emo
tion, so he considers language structure in general as restricting the
dimensions of refined feeling. He reports that language cannot express
middle emotions but only their extremes (130), that because of the
enforced syntax of subject, verb and attribute, the linguistic order is
not real (135). Only German, as a language, finds favor with Andr6,
because it is phonetically better equipped to express the medium range
of feelings; “ L ’allemand a des alliterations chuchotdes qui mieux que
le franqais d Isa tent les songeries embrum£es” (56). As a result of Andre's
dissatisfaction with words and language, he speculates upon the power of
music to express emotion. He claims that music can propel the undula
tion of one 90ul to another (73) and that through music EmmanuMe will
recognize the counterpart of her own soul in his (78). He records a
description of the nuances of passion in musical terminology: "se rhy-
thme, se scande, et s’apaise” (81), and he Indicates his desire for a
language like music: “je voudrals dcrlre en muslque” (96).
17
Music exerts an influence on both the external structure and
the style of Les Cahters. The prose of Le Cahier blanc. particularly,
is interspersed with numerous quotations from poetry. Andrg illuminates
this predilection when he declares that he will insert a strophe for its
musical influence (70), an influence he presumably defines as the musi
cal rhythm or m eter. AndrS also claims that his disjointed style is inten
tional because the harmony produced through disconnected words would
resemble something like music (43). In Le Cahier noir he is still preoc
cupied with a musical style, for he mentions his continued obsessions
with dissonance (152).
Music also becomes part of the external action of Les
Cahiers as Andrg plays the piano to Emmanu&le or listens with her to
Schumann's symphonies. He particularly likes Schumann's Sorceress
(76) and the Novelettes (85), Chopin's Scherzo No. 1 (78), and Bach;
but he detests Wagner (152). Even in recreation, Andre's primary con
cern for music is its emotional affinity and content. He refuses to sing
to Emmanudle, for like passion, music alone is better than words (80).
Andrg's concern with writing as a creative process revolves
around his concept of the purpose and method of writing. His major pur
pose in writing is to help him remember the past. Writing will keep his
youthful fantasies alive (31), and he writes because he is afraid of for
getting (51). He believes that the process of self-expression serves as an
aid in revealing his thoughts (69), a belief that recalls the difficulty of
18
verbalizing those emotions which are his primary subject. In the signi
ficant disclosure that he writes because he needs to write (31) Andr€
reveals a theory of catharsis at the foundation of artistic m otivation.
The contrast between theory and practice in Andre's method
of writing parallels the am bivalence he feels about artistic inspiration,
which he suspects may have a sexual source (44). In the perspective of
his dualism of good and evil as manifested respectively in the soul and
body, a distinctly negative connotation is cast upon this source of creati
vity. Furthermore, Andre’s cynicism concerning the origin of artistic
inspiration discloses the beginnings of an ironic attitude towards art.
Andre theorizes that writing should be spontaneous (31) and that it should
occur by chance (100), but in practice he cannot achieve this facility.
The vision of his work is always before him (100) predetermining his
goal and inhibiting hts spontaneity. On the other hand, he is frustrated
at the absence of clarity in his work, and his attem pt at self-expression
is distracted by internal, associative responses to his environment (103).
Finally, he abandons spontaneous creation com pletely, and adopts a
method of hallucinating In order to observe and describe the procedure
of m ental distortion in his m ain character (154).
Andr£*s dilem m a about the purpose and method of writing
may be traced to his concept of literature. He expresses the view that
literature reveals the Platonic truths hidden behind mere appearances:
19
Les chlm&res piutot que les rdalltds; les Imaginations des
po&tes font mieux saLlllr la v£rit£ iddale, cachde derrldre
i'apparence des choses. (43)
Although his concept of the poet's role reflects the goals of Symbolists
such as Baudelaire and MallarmS, the critical Importance Andr£ places
upon em otion, his definition of the soul as the will to love, and his
obvious alliance between emotion and poetry form an outlook more like
that of the Romantics. After reading Verlaine, whom he praises as an
im peccable writer, Andre stands on the verge of a perception sim ilar to
Wordsworth's concept of poetry. Andre writes,
. . . je sentais aupr&s ma langue si fluide, encore et com m e
lllim ltee. Je voudrats l'enserrer dans des formes rhythmicques—
m ats 1'em otion toujours fait eclater m a phrase; Je n ’en ecrls que
les debris. (69)
Andre would certainly endorse the definition of poetry as "the spontane-
11
ous overflow of powerful feelings," yet he never brings into the full
light of consciousness the tim e elem ent involved in the control of these
powerful feelings. As Wordsworth noted, poetry finds its origins in
1 2
"em otion recollected in tranquillity." Andre, in reading Verlaine, has
however, put his finger on the precise area of his unmanageable self-
expression. The Inadequacy rem ains not in the words themselves as the
m edia of emotion but rather in his own state of mind when he attem pts
1 1
Preface to the Second Edition of the Lyrical Ballads, in
Criticism: The Malot Texts, ed. W. Bate (New York: 1952), p. 344.
12
Ibid.
20
to write. Words and language cannot immediately express the poet's
raw emotion because the poet is still immersed within the feeling and is
therefore unable to exercise his critical faculties in choosing and order
ing the words.
Form as Theme: the Dream Image
The interplay of dream and reality becomes a major pre
occupation of Andrg Walter. Distinguishing between the intense inner
life and the more vapid external one, he declares that of the several
lives he has lived the least important was the real life (36). When he
sadly discovers that his friend, whom he had admired as an Idealist, is
actually a sensualist, he regrets the nauseating life surrounding him and
states his preference for his dream (46). Reality and dream begin to
merge as he and Emmanugle keep vigil at his mother's wake (88).
Andrg's sensations of mingling reality and dream come under the influ
ence of his readings in philosophy. He agrees with Spinoza that reality
is individual and that truth Is relative (103), with Schopenhauer on the
interpenetration of reality and fancy (113). He feels that time and
space exist only in man's reason (149). The conventions of chronology
and measurable distance are abandoned in the irrational world of dreamy
An early paragraph summarizes these thoughts and provides an introduc
tion for the dreams to follow:
21
Que la nult est silencleuse. J’ai presque peur & m ’ endormir.
On est seul. La pensfie se projette com me sur un fond noir,
le temp6 & venlr apparalt sur le fond noir, le temps & venlr
apparalt sur le sombre com m e une bande d ’espace. Rien ne
distrait de la vision com m encde. On n ’est plus q u 'e lle . (28)
Andre’s concept of reality is not lim ited to the objective and
factual, the world of external phenomena. Rather, he would disregard
the im portance of life outside the subjective, internal reality. After the
death of EmmanuSle, Andre becomes absorbed in the contem plation of
his dream , the dream of the sublime, which cannot be actualized (123).
He begins to define this dream as belonging to the soul (133) and God as
the divine dream (139). Andre uses the word “dream ” in different con
texts; as illusion opposed to the factual in his disgust with his friend’s
sensualism (46); as vision when he daydreams of bathing children (142),
or sees visions passing in his vagabond thoughts (164); as nightmares and
dreams that occur during sleep, and as intention when he dreams of the
book he plans to write (94). Each of these meanings becomes substantial
in its own context.
When Andr£ regards dream as illusion, he means that it is
opposed to the true facts but not that his dream is categorically unreal.
Such a notion of dreams as em phatically unreal is based upon the prem
ise that reality is tangible and clearly lim ited to external phenomena.
Such a concept is Western in cultural orientation. Certain Far Eastern
philosophies recognize the relativity of the real and the possibility that
22
1 3
dreams are on a different but no less real plane. This view is more
consistent with Andr£fs emphasis upon the reality of the inner life than Is
the Western culture * s tendency to reject dreams as unreal. At one point
Andre speaks of Emm anuele’s existence through his dreams of her, and
his life only through her love (165). She Is still a reality to him despite
the fact of her death, for the line between the material and the im ma
terial is not identical with the line between existence and non-existence.
On the other hand, the Eastern concept of the ambiguities of reality
nowhere postulates a total loss of the sense of external phenomena as
1 4
real while Andrg undergoes this loss during the process of his insanity.
The dreamlike atmosphere of Les Cahlers is intensified by
Andr£*s absorption in literature. The reading and re-reading of favorite
authors replaces normal activity in the young writer’s life; it provides
him not only with recreation, it becomes as well his means of
13
"There can be no doubt that the Buddhist conception of
the world has been strongly influenced by the observations of dreams. If
the feeling of reality in dreams is perfectly credible and if this feeling
disappears on waking, then there is no reason for not imagining life as
a dream from which one could also wake up. . . , In this sense, dreams
suggest not only degrees of reality and a doctrine of successive awaken
ings, but al90 a total reversibility of the concept of reality.” Raymond
de Becker, The Understanding of Dreams, trans. Michel Heron (New
York: 1968), pp. 402-403.
14
The sense of external phenomena as a lesser degree of
reality is recognized in certain stages of contemplation, but this is very
different from an absence of sense of reality in external phenomena.
23
com m unication with EmmanuSle. In Le Cahier blanc. Andr6 prefers
reading as a means of comm unicating with Emmanudle not only because
of his frustrated attem pts to find the correct word for describing a precise
shade of feeling, but also because reading creates a shared experience
with her. For Andr€, reading furnishes a profound contact, expectally
when it serves as a catalyst to draw forth the unnameable emotions, to
impress them with shape and form. He remembers his joy "en lisant, de
reprouver ensemble; il nous sem blait nous unir dans un meme enthousi-
asme” (36). At the same tim e, this preference for reading as a means
of com m unicating emotion allows Andrg to mask his inability to frame
his personal feelings for Emmanuele in his own words and in her presence.
In their relationship he utilizes reading as a device not of intim acy but
of distancing. Unaware of this im plication, he rejoices in their readings
together because they im plem ent the growth of a mutual past. The very
same associative quality inherent in words which had rendered them
inadequate as exact representatives of emotion he now perceives to be
a source of shared memories:
Nous aim ions & nous perdre ensemble en les plus lolntains
souvenirs; par des associations tgnues, par dessus le temps
et Uespace, par des rapports inattendus, un mot sufflsait
4 lever tant de reves. (63)
Literary allusions provide the reader with an index to A ndres
em otional, stylistic, and philosophical developm ent. He acknowledges
the literary orientation of his reality in the revealing praise of
24
Shakespeare’s King Lear, which he claim s ha' inspired EmmanuMe and
him self with an em otional enthusiasm surpassing any such experiences in
real life (33). The allusions In Le Cahier blanc are given either as a
simple list of works and authors that he and Emmanuele enjoy, such as
l ’lliade. PromSthge. Agamemnon. Hippolvte. Pascal, Bossuet, Massil
lon, Vigny, Baudelaire (33); or they are accompanied by comments on
the qualities appreciated; Lamennais for em otional content, the Gon-
courts for rhetoric, Stendhal for critical acuity (33); the Germans Hoff
mann, Schiller, and Heine for the beauty of their native tongue (55).
The writer most frequently mentioned In Le Cahier blanc is Flaubert.
His Voyage en Orient is alluded to (34) and the rhythm of his style is
praised. However, the one most significant reference to Flaubert Is to
La Tentatlon de Saint-Antoine (37). Andrd’s taste In reading differs
from EmmanuSle’s. During his reading of Apuletus’ L ’Ane d ’ or he de
cides that it is not suitable for her (58).
The allusions in Le Cahier noir are to philosophical and
religious works. Andr6 mentions Kant’s Logioue as well as the Svsteme
of Mill (100), and the fact that he had never finished the works of Scho
penhauer (163). However, several authors of literature are briefly
recalled, Goethe’s Faust (118), Hugo (137), Rousseau, Balzac, and
again Flaubert (148). The most Important reference in Le Cahier noir
25
1 5
is to the Divine Comedy of Dante. Andr6 declares that unlike Paolo
16
and Francesca, he will aspire to infinite happiness. For Andrg, read
ing inspires a feeling which he will translate into artistic terms, not
physical action. Each emotion for Emmanuele is subjected to artistic
scrutiny in his conscious attem pt to make a work of art from his love for
her (20). Andrg's scale of values places art above life.
Literature, dream and reality undergo a fusion in the cen
tral dreams of Les Cahiers. The primary Jacob-angel image discussed
earlier is relevant to the dream context furnishing the backbone of the
17
plot of Les Cahiers. because the angel is a personification of the dream .
Justin O'Brien observes that the many direct quotations in
Les Cahiers assume a certain pattern. “Quotations in Greek, Latin,
Italian and German abound, doubtless to impress the reader, though on
exam ination all the Italian proves to be from Dante and all the German
from Goethe.” Portrait of Andr£ Gtde (New York: 1964), p. 51.
16
The reader will recall the literary occasion that inspired
the affair between the lovers, their reading of Lancelot and Guenevere.
In the case of the Italian lovers, reading inspired an emotion which cu l
m inated in an expression of physical love.
17
“ In prim itive societies, before it was rationally considered
that dreams and reality were two states of being, a distinction between
the two was m aintained by regarding the dream state as a projection
beyond the dreamer into a supernatural or transcendental universe.
Later . . . gods or demons were held to be responsible for dreams.
Dreams were personified and made into autonomous personages, entities
in themselves. . . . In the Talmud it is an archangel called Baal ha
halom who presides over dreams, and in the Bible God's message is trans
m itted to man by the intermediary of the angel, the angel being a per
sonification of the dream .” The Understanding of Dreams, trans. Michel
Heron, pp. 208-210.
26
The connection between the angel and the dream ts further am plified by
the activities that occur during Andre’s dream sleep. In each case the
dream Involves a famous literary figure transformed from the original by
the distortion of Andre’ s personality.
The dreams of Andre in Le Cahier blanc illum inate aspects
of his Involuntary fascination with and repulsion for Em m anuele’s body.
The entry of November 6 refers to a dream in which her smile mocks
him (86), and that of November 7 describes a more disturbing vision in
which she fondles his hand before the smirking observations of the family:
"je tentals de repousser, mais vainem ent, ta main obstinement cares-
sante" (87). In Le Cahier noir. after Em m anuele’s death, these same
dreams assume the grotesque proportions of nightmares. Emmanufile’s
mocking smile has hardened into the hideous smiling mask of a wax pup
pet while her body is distorted into a sack filled with sand (169). A
precedent for this nightmare may be found in a tale by E. T. A. Hoff
mann, In which the m ain character Nathanael discovers that his beloved
Olympia is only a m echanical doll:
Nathanael stood transfixed; he had only too clearly seen
that in the deathly pale waxen face of Olympia there were
no eyes, but m erely black holes.1 8
1 8
E. T , A. Hoffmann, The Tales, trans. a n d e d . Leonard J.
Kent and Elizabeth Knight (Chicago and London: 1969), I, 163.
27
GLde reproduces the wax face and the black holes, but he adds the detail
of the sand-filled body, perhaps as a clue to the title of the Hoffmann
original: Per Sandman, written in 1817.
In the following vision experienced by Andre, Gide uses a
robe as a linking Image to show similarity and contrast to the literary
originals. Emmanufile appears in an ornate robe followed by a monkey
who lifts the fringes of her mantle (170), Gide has taken the source of
this vision, the appearance of the Queen of Sheba to St. Anthony in
Flaubert’s La Tentatlon de Saint-Antoine with its detail of the obscene
monkey that peeps under her gown, and adapted it to the personality of
Andrg. In the original, the Queen of Sheba displays a beautiful body to
St. Anthony, yet in Andrg * s nightmare, when the monkey lifts the man
tle, Emmanu&le’ s body is revealed to be nothing but an empty void, a
black hole. In the mind of Andrg she has not only no physical appeal,
but no body at all:
Sous la robe, il n’y avalt rien; c ’ gtait noir, noir comme
un trou; je sanglotais de dgsespolr. (170)
The earlier dream corollary to this nightmare appears in Le
Cahier blanc as Andrg remembers his childhood dream of Dante’s Bea
trice. The attention given in this passage to the gown of Beatrice con
nects It to the elaborately gowned but bodiless Emmanu&le:
Je revais des nults d ’amour devant l ’ orgue; la mglodie
m ’apparalssait, presque palpable fiction, comme une
28
Beatrice nuageuse, fior gittando sopra e d ’interno, comme
une Dame glue, Immatgrlellement pure, & la robe tralnante
aux reflets de saphir, aux replis profonds azures, aux lueurs
pales, aux formes lentes, musicales. (50)
The reader might have expected that Emmanuele, a Beatrice figure to
Andre during his life, would have assumed a resemblance to Beatrice in
his dreams of her after her death. Instead, however, she comes as a
travesty of the Queen of Sheba. Such a change in the quality of both
the dream and its associations can only indicate a change in the con
sciousness of the narrator. Andre's rigid dichotomy between pure spirit
ual love and carnal pleasure had robbed the body of the moral sanction
of normal love.
Literary dream traditions anticipate Gide’ s selection of a
transformed female figure. For example, as E. R. Curtius points out in
his European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, the figure of the old-
young woman participates in the collection of archaic proto-images, and
in dreams such figures can simultaneously assume two Identities, two
opposed shapes that contain a logic of their own. Curtius clarifies this
dream logic, particularly with regard to the phenomenon of the old-
young woman, as dealing with symbolic rejuvenation and signifying
regeneration. Correspondtngly, the woman who appears negatively as
19
does the Queen of Sheba to Andrg, becomes an image of damnation.
1 9
Trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: 1963), p. 105.
29
Here Gide utilizes an old literary device of dreams, that of the night-
20
mare as prophecy, for Andre goes mad and Is driven to suicide. The
use of the dream or nightmare as prophecy may be found in many of the
ancient epics. In the Gilgamesh. the main character dreams that a
warrior falls upon him, and after the people pay homage, he embraces
the stranger like a woman. The strange warrior is a prophecy of the
coming of Enkidu. In The Iliad. Achilles dreams that Patroclus is seek
ing burial, and in The Odyssey Penelope’s dream is personified in the
21
figure of Ipthlme, who urges her to regain courage,
C u rtiu s makes some relevant observations upon the Queen
of Sheba and other visions of St. Anthony: "What Athanasius, for exam
ple, in his celebrated life of St. Anthony, reports concerning the demons
who torm ented the Egyptian monk—devils who *reach to the ceiling’
(Ch, 23), *to the clouds’ (Ch. 60), who change into women —these are
the negative correspondences to the positive images of redem ption."
Loc . c it.
21
No mention of dreams can be made without including a
reference to the influence of Freud on the field of dream analysis. And
yet Freud lim ited the meaning of dreams to only one of its contexts: th a
of dream as wish, and, specifically, wish fulfillm ent. Jung and others,
however, contend that dreams are not lim ited to this function. "Jung
finds that dreams, rather than serving to guard sleep and satisfy repressed
wishes, possess a compensatory and prospective biological function.
Compensatory, because we find in them everything that the waking con
sciousness forgets, rejects, and Ignores. Prospective, because they anti
cipate the future and present an outline of it, a sketch, a preliminary
plane. . . . With his philosophy of the Imagination, Gaston Bachelard
opened wide the gates unlocked by Jung, he reinvested the image with
the dignity that the reductive attitude of the Freudians was taking aw ay.
. . . He connects the life of the image with the archetypes discovered by
depth psychology; he considers that they are sublimations rather than
reproductions of reality. He even puts forward the ‘ scientific hypothesis’
of dreams as forerunners of ‘techniques.’ Consequently, dream activity
Invents new life, a new spirit.” Raymond de Becker, pp. 282-283.
30
The dream as warning Is also frequently used in literature.
Charles of Orleans, In Songe en Com plainte. dreams of an old man who
22
warns him to renounce love. This type of dream often presages death,
as in Shakespeare's Henry VI where the Cardinal of Winchester dreams
of the death of the Duke of Gloucester, Romeo dreams that Juliette has
found him dead, and Clarence dreams of his own assassination in Richard
23
HI. Gide's Cahiers uniquely combines the warning, prophecy and
dream elem ents in the direct statem ent of Andre's mother, * ‘Tu ne peux
pas fatre la vie & ton reve” (126), for her use of dream includes the con
cept of her son's metaphysical outlook.
The nightmares that function to reveal Andre’ s state of mind
also reflect a dream tradition in literature. Thus the Dreamer in Lorris’
version of the Romance of the Rose embodies his state of mind when he
22
N. L, Goodrich, Charles of Orleans: A Study of Themes
in his French and in his English Poetry (Cenfeve: 1967), p. 141.
23
Raymond de Becker, pp. 112-113. With regard to the
Elizabethan concept of dreams and death, a document by Thomas
Nashe entitled The Terrors of the Night assigns five causes to dreams:
spirits rising out of earth and water that feed on melancholy, memo
ries of the day, private guilt, the Devil's deceit, and spirits of the
dead. Cardan's Com forte mentions that a dream of a voyage is a
prophecy of death. Both are cited in Lily B. Cam pbell's Shake-
speare's Tragic Heroes (New York: 1966), pp. 90-92, and pp. 133-
134.
31
dreams of his future self which he longs to possess idealized with the
24
courtly virtues personified in the Rose.
The them e of dream and reality in Les Cahiers is not as
fully developed as In Its predecessors. For exam ple, in the eleventh-
century Japanese Dream from the Koniaku-Monogatart. a hunter dreams
that he and his family have become the pheasants pursued by other hun
ters, and in the eighteenth-century Dream of the Red Pavilion. Pao-Yu
25
dreams he has been supplanted by another Pao-Yu.
Literary narrative violates tim e and space in methods related
26
to those of the condensation and fragmentation observed in dreams.
Indeed, the metaphor of literature as dream has been the subject of
24
Frederick Goldin, The Mirror of Narcissus in the Courtly
Love Lvric (Ithaca: 1967), p. 58. Goldin explains the state of mind
revealed by the dream as follows: “What he longs to possess im m ediately
is not a candid reflection of what he is, but an idealized image of what
he is to becom e. . . . His struggle to reach the Kose Is a struggle toward
union with his own ideal (p. 58).
25
Other traditional uses of dreams in literature include the
dream as a method of exposition, as In Cicero’s Dream of Scipio. or the
dream as symbolic and unifying device, such as Raskolnikov’s dream of
the horse beaten to death in Crime and Punishment. The Divine Comedy
and Faust. II furnish examples of dream usage as both explicit m otif and
as im plicit structural support. Raymond de Becker, p. 105.
26
An exam ple is the following lyric by Hans Sachs: “My
friend, It is the poet’s work/ Dreams to interpret and to m a rk ./ Believe
me that m an's true co n ceit/ In a dream becomes com plete:/ All poetry
we ever re ad / Is but true dreams interpreted.” Quoted in Francis Gol
fing’s translation of N ietzche’s Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of
Morals (New York: 1956), p. 20.
32
27
poetry dealing with the question of inspiration and Nletzche has com
mented upon dreams as an atmospheric pre-condition of poetry in their
28
im m ediate apprehension of form. Contemporary critics as well have
29
seen the relevance of the concept of literature as dream metaphor.
27
Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. James Stra-
chey (New York: 1959), p. 259. Freud notes, “We perceive, as pecu
liarities of the condensing process, a selection of those elem ents which
occur several tim es over in the dream content, the formation of new
unities."
28
“ The person who is responsive to the stimuli of art behaves
toward the reality of dream much the way the philosopher behaves toward
the reality of existence: he observes exactly and enjoys his observations,
for it is by these images that he Interprets life.” Nietzche interprets the
figure of Apollo as the Greek image of dream function. He goes on to
say, “Apollo is at once the god of all plastic powers and the soothsaying
god. He who is etym ologically the 'lucent' one, the god of light,
reigns also over the fair illusion of our inner world of fantasy. The per
fection of these conditions in contrast to our Imperfectly understood wak
ing reality, as well as our profound awareness of nature's healing powers
during the interval of sleep and dream, furnishes a symbolic analogue to
the soothsaying faculty and quite generally to the arts, which make life
possible." Birth of Tragedy, p. 21.
29
Graham Hough claim s that literature is the total dream of
man: “ I use the word dream not sentim entally but advisedly: for litera
ture Is not the record of m an's doings; that is history; it is not his formal
speculation; that is philosophy; literature is man's vision of his condition
and his destiny. And of this vision every fragment of literary experience
is a part.” The Ckeam and the Task (New York: 1963), p. 98. Yvonne
Rodax maintains that dream and myth share the same original Identity:
"The dream-world has been shown by scholars to be so closely related to
the land of faerie and myth that there is no doubt as to their original
identity. It makes little difference whether Mephlstopheles is a real
fiend from a real hell or an 'archetype' which may be described as an
aspect of Faust's personality . . . he smells of sulphur all the sam e."
The Real and the Ideal in the Novella of Italy. France and England
(Chapel Hill: 1968), pp. 3-4.
33
The concept of literature as dream realtes specifically to
the question of form as them e in Les Cahiers d ’AndrS W alter. As the
reader will recall, Andr6, the fictional narrator of Les Cahiers. identi
fies himself with Allain, the character of the book he plans to write.
The Inner book is related to the outer book in the same manner as the
dream levels merging with reality are netaphyslcally explored. The
inner book is a dream image of the real book, both in subject m atter and
in execution.
The subject m atter of Allain is envisioned by its author to be
a purified duplicate of Les Cahiers. Andre's stated purpose in writing
Les Cahiers is to recall the memory of his feelings, to cem ent them
before they are Irretrievable (51). While Andre wrote Les Cahiers to
serve as a vehicle of memory, he intended the projected work Allain to
have a consciously different purpose. In his novel, Andre planned to
examine the love between himself and Emmanu£le, and to strip it of
“ le m oi,” the barrier of him self as narrator:
Puis, Tldee m ’ est venue, & contem pler notre amour, au
lieu d*un vain personnage qui declam erait sur ces choses,
de les falre vivre et s’agiter im m eedlatem ent, avec la
passion de ce qu'on a v6cu. (35-36).
He had also designed for Allain an abstract of the struggle between beast
and angel:
34
Un pecsonnage seulem ent, et encore un quelconque. ou plu-
tot son cerveau, n ’ est que le lieu commun oil le drame se
livre, le champ clog 6u les adversaires s’assalllent. Ces
adversaires . . . l'A m e e t la Chair. (95)
The themes of the projected work both reflect the actual work and c riti
cize It, for Allain will be deliberately narrowed to these twin concerns.
The dream image of the work cuts away the extraneous subjects of the
actual work: words, language and music, writing, dream , and reality.
The inner book remains a dream image not only in this purified sense,
it is also only a pipedream: the book remains only in notes, it is never
actualized.
CHAPTER II
THE MIRROR IMAGE
Paludes. G ide’s fourth work of prose fiction, appeared In
1895 following Les Cahiers d ’Andr£ Walter (1891), La Tentative
L
amoureuse (1893), and Le Voyage d ’Urien (1893). A satire, Paludes
caricatures the artificiality of Parisian literary circles of its day, the
living and working habits discerned by the narrator-writer In others, in
addition to those displayed by him self. Written in diary form, Paludes
also exem plifies Gide's transformation into narrative of the m edieval
sotie. a burlesque play satirizing the clergy, titled landowners, and
2
other authorities. The sotie can be best defined in comparison to the
3
r£cit. that rudimentary form of the conte which recounts a deed and is
t i d e ’s dedication to Rouart names the work as a satire, but
adds the provocative question, “satire de quoi?" A. J. Guerard distin
guishes four levels of satire: the attack on com placent resignation, the
self-satire of the narrator who is him self conventional, the satire on the
serious tone of existentialism , and the satire on Gide's own later artistic
concerns. (Andre Gide. New York: 1963, p. 69). Justin O’Brien wrote,
. . it has become a message applicable to all frustrated Intellectuals
of whatever tim e or place, a more accessible W asteland. (Portrait of
Andre Gide. New York: 1964, p . 117).
2
Germaine Bree and Margaret Guiton, The French Novel
from Gide to Camus (New York: 1962), p. 24.
3
Dictionary of French Literature, ed, Sidney D. Braun
Totowa, New Jersey: 1965), p. 317.
35
36
4
characterized by a unified point of view. The sotie. by contrast, mani
fests a structural deconcentration, mocks itself stylistically, and refuses
5
to im itate reality.
Paludes is seventy-six pages in length, divided into five
chapters. The first-person narrator is the main character, while his girl
friend Ang&le and his two friends, Richard and Hubert, constitute the
important minor characters. Although the main character himself is not
referred to by name, an omission that satirizes his pallid personality,
there are thirty-six minor characters either mentioned by name, or con
tributing a line of dialogue, whose names mock the literary milieu by
6
virtue of their pomposity. Those minor characters who are identified by
occupation are the dramatist Stephen, the poets Claudius and Urbanus,
the philosopher Alexander, the physiologist Carolus, the critic Evaristus,
and the moralist Barnaby.
The events of the story take place during six days in the life
of the narrator. On Tuesday, the first day, he receives a visit from his
4
W. Wolfgang Holdhelm, Theory and Practice of the Novel:
A Study of Andre Gide (Geneve: 1968), p. 166.
5
Ibid. . p. 167.
6
These names are: Roland, Abel, Theodore, Walter, Mar
tin, Clement, Prosper, Casimlr, Hildebrand, Idlevert, Valentine, Isi
dore, Patras, Anatole, Phlloxenus, Madrus, Bor ace, Pontius, Bernard,
Octavius, Lucian, Joachim, Bridget, Tullius, Tancred, Gaspar, Nico-
demus, Gustave, Ale ides, Maglor, and Amadeus.
37
friend Hubert at 6:00 p .m . and then goes himself to call on Angele. On
both occasions he attempts to describe Paludes. the book he has begun to
write. On Wednesday morning, Richard visits the narrator to recount
his fam ily's financial crisis and their efforts to pay the wages of Louise,
their maid. After Richard's visit, the narrator walks to the lard in des
Plantes to study botanical varieties for his book. In the afternoon he
calls on literary friends, and finishes hts day with another visit to Angele.
Together they decide to make a journey out of the city on the coming
Saturday. Thursday morning the narrator's work on Paludes is inter
rupted by another of Richard*s visits, the afternoon is spent in conversa
tion with men of letters, and after a visit by Hubert, the narrator
attends Angele*s "evening in," a get-together for the entire literary
crowd. Thursday night a distressing nightmare keep6 him wakeful, and
Friday morning his sleep is disturbed by the visit of Ale ides. Friday
evening he and Angele prepare for their journey by listening to Hubert's
account of a panther hunt. Angele falls asleep during the narrator's
story of a duck shooting expedition. On Saturday the long awaited
excursion to the country expires In the afternoon rain. Sunday morning
the narrator lectures Angfele on the futility of her life, and Hubert
announces his imminent departure to Africa. At 6:00 p .m . Jasper calls
on the narrator, who has begun working on a new book, Polders, a
sequel to hts finished Paludes.
38
The events of the plot concern the narrator's m otivation to
awaken Angele to the petty conditions of her life, a m otivation based
on the theory that enlightenm ent Incites action towards a better way of
living. Irony undermines the narrator's intent, for in his blindness to the
paralyzing influence of his own presence in Angele*s life, he fails to
see that if she sought a more rewarding existence she would surely dis
card him . At the same tim e, the narrator is only half aware of the
attraction between Hubert and Angele, despite the fact that each tim e
he calls on Angele she informs him that Hubert has Just left her. In the
m eantim e, his relationships with other authors and playwrights convince
him that the purpose of his book Paludes is misunderstood. He had
intended the book to be an expose of the com placent resignation that
makes an insipid life tolerable. However, the group comprehends more
than the narrator the contradictions of his goal, and they finally turn on
him in exasperation.
The clim ax of the narrator’s effort to disgust Angele with
herself occurs, ironically, im m ediately after he has confronted her with
the sterility of their relationship. When he rejects her proposition to
sleep with him, telling her that she is too fragile for a physical relation
ship, he is encouraged by the bitterness of her smile to finish Paludes.
for he believes that his goal of arousing her to the truth of her m ediocrity
has been accomplished.
39
The two m ale characters, Richard and Hubert, represent
the extrem e polarities of the narrator's mode of life. Richard's life
style is em otional, while Hubert is the man of action. Neither is upheld
as a model, however, for Hubert's four businesses and three leisure acti
vities spin him in senseless motion, while Richard's devoted family life
cannot compensate for his financial incom petence. However, the nar
rator's attack on these flaws cannot conceal their obvious Insignificance
beside his own weaknesses.
Several themes in Paludes resemble those of Les Cahiers.
yet the solemnity of the previous work has been replaced by drollery.
The tension between body and soul that tormented Andr6 is unknown to
the impotent narrator of Paludes. who evaluates his inert reaction to
Angele not as a valuable chastity but as a paralysis (p. 388). He sleeps
at Angele's apartment but not in her bed, and disparages their relation
ship with a satirical thyme:
Nous ne sommes pas,
Ch&re, de ceux-lfi
Par qui naissent les fils des hommes. (p. 447)
The mental suffering of Les Cahiers has become the subject of burlesque
as Glde mocks his own earlier work.
Similarly, the problem of words and expression ransacked by
the desperate author of Les Cahiers degenerates in Paludes to the accu
mulation of a pompous vocabulary. The narrator tries to discover new
40
7
epithets for “fungosities” (396) and “blastoderm” (391), and he calcu
lates the most propitious moment to use the word “exiguuous" before the
literary circle (403). He endows “ aristolochia,” the name of a shrub
encountered on his miserable excursion with Angele, with a poetic sad-
ness reminiscent of the disappointing journey (445).
The many allusions present in Les Cahiers. which were indi
cative of Andr£*s education and his attempt to com m unicate with
Emmanuele, have diminished to the few authors mentioned by the nar
rator of Paludes and accordingly ridiculed by Gide. The narrator quotes
the lines from Vergil’s Bucolics that inspired his own main character,
lines in which Vergil’s Tityrus Is praised by Meliboeus for being satisfied
7
Justin O ’Brien relates the narrator’s use of scientific terms
to G ide’ s own knowledge and love of biology and botany. (Portrait of
Andr£ Gide. p. 109).
g
Information provided by O’Brien illum inates the Importance
of "aristolochla” : “ It happens that since the late eighteenth century this
flower has been known as an exam ple of protogyny of the favoring of
cross-pollination and prevention of self-pollination through the maturing
of the fem ale elem ent while the m ale elem ent remains im m ature. The
flower has a tubular calyx with a dilated lower portion; in its first, or
fem ale, stage the erect tube is lined with stiff hairs pointing downward.
Fertilization is effected by small flies that creep down Into the wider
part, where they find mature stigmas. Unable to escape through the bar
rier of the rigid hairs, they wander about in the floral trap and thus ferti
lize the stigmas with pollen brought from previously visited flowers.
After some hours, the stigmas wilt, the anthers open and dust from flies
with fresh pollen, and, as the calyx tube bends downward and the hairs
wither, the prisoners are released to carry their pollen to the receptive
stigmas of younger flowers. . . . The aristolochia, then, which was long
the only known exam ple of a temporary prison for Insects, offers a perfect
parallel to the closed literary circles in which Andrd and his friends
m ove.” (Portrait of Andre Gide. p. 110).
41
with the swampy terrain of his farm (372). The burlesque on the narra
tor’s verbal precision in botany explains the allusion to Darwin (396). In
the larger satirical context of the narrator's rigidly circumscribed literary
9
world, an indication of Gide’s growing discontent with Symbolism,
M allarm6's name is twice mentioned. First, the narrator describes the
sound of the compressed-air rifle as analogous to the sound of “Palm !" in
a line by Mallarm£ (431), and second, he misquotes the poet just before
his departure to the suburbs with Angele:
“Nous part irons! je sens que des oiseaux 9ont ivres!” AngSle!
c'est un vers de Monsieur Mallarmg! — je le cite assez m al—
1 1 est au singulier— mais vous partez aussi — (439)
9
On this subject, A. J, Guerard quotes Yvonne Davet: “ The
reaction against symbolism was, as Yvonne Davet remarks, inevitable
and ‘in the air.' Marcel Schwob's Livre de Monelle (1894) also preached
individualism, ( disponlbilit€,' and hedonism, but the Impulsion was far
more literary than Gide's. Zola announced the collapse of symbolism in
1896 and 1897, and hailed the new naturlstes. The Revue naturiste was
founded in March 1897, and contained a venomous attack on Mallarmg.
The Ballades francaises of Paul Fort, published in 1897, became progres
sively less symbolist and more earthy during the years. But here too the
revolt was more literary than Gide's.” Autour des Nourritures terrestres
(Paris: 1928), pp. 24-40, cited by A, J. Guerard in his book Andrg Gide.
p. I94n. Germain Br6e also notes, “ Parodying himself, Gide attacks by
indirection, pushing the literary processes of the symbolists to their most
absurd consequences: In his marshes Tityrus angles for nothing, swallows
earthworms with relish: the would-be author loads his text with rare
words and elaborate epithets, he takes trips to the botanical gardens— all
to give a concrete content to a most dismal inner landscape.” (Gide.
New Jersey: 1963, p. 59).
42
Other literary allusions include the references to Samson and Sysiphe,
characters sharing the futility or monotony of the narrator (450), and the
character Slnbad (449). There is also ridicule of the mindless im itation
of other authors, exem plified as the narrator drinks a dally bowl of milk
like the Lake Poets. Finally, the narrator appropriately calm s himself,
while awaiting instructions from Hubert on the care of his charity
patients, by reading “ L ittle Lenten Lessons'’ (452), The many musical
allusions in Les Cahiers have vanished, leaving only a reference to a
Mozart sonatina played on the piano by Angele (391).
The dreams and nightmares of Andre Walter linger in
Paludes In one peculiar nightmare which figuratively renders the narra
to r’s sense of suffocation. A headache brought on by the gathering of
the literary circle in Angele’ s small apartment becomes, within the
stream of consciousness of the nightmare, the pain of a wooden leg that
Impedes the narrator’s progress through a marsh until he spies Angele in
a boat. As Em m anuele’ s body had evaporated beneath the Queen of
Sheba’s robes, Angele’s figure also appears on the point of dissolution.
The grotesque distortion of Andre W alter’s dreams echoes in the elastic
rug that replaces the swamp as Angele, clutching two chair legs, seats
herself (426). The narrator wakes from this nightmare just as he is
about to be caught by a crowd of writers who chase him through a surred
apartm ent building where rooms are piled haphazardly on top of each
other.
43
Action and personality In Paludes are new additions to the
topics of the earlier C ahiers. The concern with action develops on
three levels: the narrator’s physical acts, his intellectual absorption witi
the meaning of action, and the opinions of his friends. On the physical
level, the narrator’s deficiency as a man of action is exaggerated by the
number of social visits that occupy his tim e, his tendency to describe
his book rather than to write it, the artificial love relationship in which
he avoids sexual intim acy, and finally the imaginary Importance of the
journey he and Angele undertake, a journey whose abortive reality is
emphasized by its minute duration. The them atic structure of action
on the second, intellectual level rests upon the narrator’s definitions of
action. He considers writing a good and useful form of doing (373, 383),
indeed as a significant act (374). He justifies the repetition of his days
on the grounds that a repeated act is better than none at all (380), and
he disparages working for money as action without accomplishment
(382). An act can be evil (381), It can be passionate as in the sex act
(388), it is inseparable from personality (418). The narrator also
believes that a decisive act erases the deceptive seriousness of dally
acts (430).
The contrast between the narrator’s speculations about action
and the facts of his dally life contribute to the satire of Paludes. for the
narrator’ s Intellectual dialogue ironically evaluates his own physical
acts. Although he upholds writing as a significant form of action, he
44
writes only when there is nothing else to do (390). His only other act,
the journey with Angele that assumes monumentally decisive overtones,
resembles the Sunday outings which, because of their economic and
geographic sim plicity, are common recreation to many people.
The deeper contrasts between the Idea and the act are im pli
cit in Paludes. When Barnaby the moralist declaim s upon action em anat
ing from the will, he accuses the narrator of trying to force others to act,
depriving their acts of the responsibility that gives them meaning (413).
The narrator argues that increasing the responsibility of small acts, as
Barnaby advocates, will instead increase the fear of action, thereby
expanding scruples, not responsibility, and proportionately contracting
the liberty to act (413). Later, however, after the nightmare convinces
the narrator that he is obsessed with the process of acting out an idea, he
com plains that the idea itself is a fever (430). At the end, when Hubert
announces his departure to Africa with Roland, the narrator claim s credit
for having persuaded Roland to go on the journey. Hubert reminds him
that the ideas of others do not incite action, implies that the example
given by a m an's own behavior is more influential than words, and alleges
that the narrator's behavior would never inspire decisive behavior in
others. The conclusion of Paludes points towards a separation of act and
idea and, when added to the narrator's experience, states that not only is
thought an ineffective incentive to act, it can also become a deterrent.
45
The theme of personality is examined In Paludes through the
eccentricity of the narrator and through the discussions of his friends.
The outstanding feature of the narrator's personality Is the complaint of
boredom which he lodges at every opportunity. To Hubert (388) and to
Angele (391) he mourns- the monotony of existence, to Roland he mut
ters that life is insufferable (400). He also philosophizes about the
human love of repetition (419). The theme of personality develops also
through conversation. The narrator conceives of his motive to enlighten
Angele concerning the monotony of her life as analogous to that of a
doctor who wishes to cure the sick. Valentine Knox disagrees that sick
ness should necessarily be regarded as a bane. Indeed, he considers
health as an average condition and sickness as individuality. He trans
lates sickness, in terms of the personality, into the eccentricity that
distinguishes one man from another and gives him value (415).
A second chord in the narrator’s lament is the plea for vari
ety. He Insists that Angele's story has even less variety than his own,
and he writes later in his notes on Richard's character that one must in
troduce variety into life (382). He artificially creates variety in his own
schedule by a scheme of pre-plans, an agenda designed to initiate sur
prise. He writes a list of things to do for a day one or two weeks ahead.
When the day comes, he opens the agenda to that date and, having for
gotten its contents, is surprised, or at least reminded, of the duties to be
46
done. The Items he has ordered for himself, which in fact he does not
accomplish on that day, become the deficit:
L'agenda a du bon, p en sai-je^car si je n'eusse pas marqu£
pour ce m atin ce que j ’ eusse du faire, j ’aurais pu Poublier,
et je n'aurais pu me rijouir de ne 1'avoir point fait. C'est
touJours 14 le charm e qu'a pour moi ce que j'appelai si
jollm ent l 'imprgvu n£gatif: je l'alm e assez car il n£cesslte
peu d'apport, de sorte qu'il me sert pour les jours ordinaires.
(430)
The trip with Angele begins as another attem pt at variety. The travel
lers do not define their destination because the narrator wishes to create
another artificial surprise, one that he labels “ l ’impr^vu” (399). The
ironic prelude to disappointment increases with the narrator's suggestion
that they prepare themselves m entally for adventure. This atmospheric
preparation for the intellect involves the telling of hunting stories, expe
ditions undertaken in pursuit of danger and resulting in disaster. Hubert's
tale of the panther hunt ends with the death of his partner, while the
narrator's account of the duck shoot concludes with a horrible and sense
less slaughter of the birds. These hunting stories provide contrast to the
narrator's dull journey into the Parisian suburbs at the same tim e that
they ridicule his method of inducing artificial enthusiasm. This ironic
contrast intensifies with the narrator's pathetic attem pt to redeem the
memory of the miserable journey by recording only its poetic moments
(441). The hunting tales also illustrate the fact that man cannot fully
abandon civilization, for they both show that he rarely assumes a status
47
of nature equal to that of the anim als he hunts. The emphasis on the
hunters* apparatus presents its own ironic com m ent on the “sportsman
ship** of the hunt. To expedite the slaying of the panther, the hunters
are suspended from two swings hung high on both sides of a ravine that
the anim al is known to frequent. The swings facilitate the killing, for
both hunters fire from a vantage point high above the panther's head,
and the explosion causes the swings to move backwards out of reach
(432). The duck hunters used elaborate compressed-air rifles, and one
hid himself under the marshes so that the ducks, hearing his im itation of
their call, could not locate the danger (434).
The metaphors appearing in the narrator's prose are still
another signal of his negative outlook. He likens the normal man to
the primeval grey pigeon (416), ideas to nlghtwalking ghouls (424) and
to a wooden leg sticking in a bog (425). He describes to Angele the
swollen moon on the passionless night of the duck hunt (436), endows
hope brought by the first light of dawn with chattering teeth (438), and
mourns the bitter ash of though (438). The blindness of this negative
view, and his habitual lam ent of boredom, relate him to Tityre, the
character of his own book.
Form as Theme: The Book within a Book
The narrator of Les Cahiers d'Andre Walter Intended to
write a novel, yet this plan remained a “dream ," an act not realized.
48
The interior book rem ained in the inspirational stage 90 fax as the reader
could judge, because although the narrator Andrd reported the com ple
tion of his novel Allaln. he himself becam e progressively more disor
dered in his m ind. The reader was given no evidence, such as a portion
of the interior work, to see with hts own eyes. Thus in Les Cahiers
form as theme was lim ited to aesthetic preoccupations, the problems of
writing, and to a w riter’s discussion of his work. In Paludes. however,
the book within a book is m aterially presented to the reader; not, to be
sure, in its finished state, but rather in chronological segments: first, as
these segments are being conceived in the mind of the narrator; second,
as they are actually being written; and third, after they have been com
pleted.
Two friends of the narrator provide him with the initial con
ceptions of his main character. The inspiration for com placent Tityre
is partially attributed on the one hand to Richard, content In the never-
ending tedium of his hard life (381), and on the other hand to Angele,
whose apparent ignorance of the monotony of their relationship suggested
unawareness, T ityre’s other primary characteristic (389). The narrator
also records an Incident he observed in a restaurant and which contributed
to the notion of endless repetition in the habits of Tityre: the unceasing
efforts of waiters who carry in and clear away dishes from the same tables
all day (380). At the botanical gardens the narrator studies the species
49
of plants for the swamp setting of his book. There he is Inspired by the
insects to analyze the feeling of futility he will Include In his book:
Je m ’occupe & les regarder; c'est meme un peu cela qui m 'a
donng rid £ e d'6crire Paludes; le sentiment d ’une inutile
contemplation, E m o tio n que j ’al devant les d£licates choses
grises. (389-390)
Segments of the book within the book are given in the
process of being written, sometimes as notes and at other times while
the narrator sits with pen in hand in the act of composition. At Angele's
request, the narrator reads his notes describing how Tityre likes to fish
despite the fact that he never catches anything (376), how the water life
below the surface of the swamp should be delineated (376), and how the
blinding white glare from the salt mines visited by Tityre requires the
workers to wear protective eye glasses (377), The third type of passage
from the interior book is the completed portion of a page or paragraph
cited by the narrator after the composition Itself has taken place. To
Angdle the narrator quotes the very beginning of hts book, which is also
a diary like the work in which it is incorporated. The title is given
“Journal de Tityre ou Paludes'* (375), and the first paragraph describes
the setting surrounding the tower of Tityre: a wild garren, a wood, a
meadow or plain, and a pond. This description develops in a segment of
the inner book presented in the act of composition that delineates the
geography of the swampy region nearby, and attempts to convey its
impression of beauty on the mind of the Interior narrator (391).
50
The prose techniques utilized by Gide in Paludes are respon
sible for the creation of the book-within-a-book form. One such tech
nique is the exploitation of point of view. On the surface level of the
outer book, the point of view is that of the first person novel. The fact
that the author of the first-person novel hides behind the narrator allows
several liberties in the content of this form, liberties that are permitted
to the omniscient author only at the expense of his fictional illusion of
reality. The narrator of the first-person novel can state his opinions on
the art of writing without showing the intrusion of the true author that
the reader perceives, for exam ple, In the work of Fielding, Sterne, and
Cervantes. These discussions on the art of writing are possible in the
first-person novel without a rupture of the Illusion on account of the nar-
1 0
rator’s “real” position within the fiction itself.
The narrator of Paludes speaks directly on the subject of
novel writing. He m aintains that truth In art, and particularly truth in
fiction, lies in the province of the deliberate selection of details, an act
of abstraction which makes the facts more consistent or “true" than they
are In reality. Commenting indirectly on Aristotelian probability, he
claim s that In a good novel the events are appropriate to the characters
(376), and he defends the rearrangement of facts on this basis (392). He
1 0
Bertll Romberg, Studies In the Narrative Technique of the
First-Person Novel (Stockholm: 1962), p. 29.
further m aintains that the form of a novel relies upon its exclusion of the
superfluous:
N 'aurals-tu jam ais rien compris, pauvre am i, aux raisons
d'etre d'un poem e? S sa nature? a sa venue? Un livre . . .
mats un livre, Hubert, est clos, pletn, llsse comme un
oeuf. On n'y saurait faire entrer rien, pas une €pingle, que
par force, et sa forme en serait brls£e. (402)
The narrator's opinions on art, spoken as they are through his own mouth,
do not break the fictional Illusion, On the other hand, these opinions
are the object of ridicule, a satirical effect produced by two technical
devices. The first utilizes the narrator's own voice, speaking on the
virtues of his work, to undermine his words by the immodesty that
prompts him to evaluate it with praise. As Bertil Romberg notes, "This
ironical way of letting the main character unveil his own naXvetg is an
U
effective device in all satire.” The second device surrounds the narra
to r’s pompous opinions with a deflating context. For exam ple, the seri
ous discussion of truth In Action is punctured by Ang&le, who raises prag
m atic objections to his rearrangem ent of details. The narrator's defense,
reinforced by his insistence that the fictional rearrangement of details
remains true to the em otional impression the facts gave him is penetrated
by her next doubt, “Mals si cette Emotion est fausse” (393).
The author-narrator also contributes to the atmosphere of
irony when he tries to explain the content of his book to all who inquire.
52
Each new inquiry elicits a different response: Paludes is about a man
who never travels (372); a man who lives surrounded by marshes (374); a
man who represents the norm, the third person (410); it Is about animals
who live in dark caves (411). The difference between these answers
creates the impression that the narrator either has done no substantial
work on the book and changes his mind as to what he will do, or that the
book is so amorphous that it cannot be understood and described even by
its creator. The narrator excuses this deficiency with a rationalization
that weakens his statem ent concerning the classical coherence of form:
Monsieur, dis-je, les avis different— le fond permane. — Mais
comprenez, je vous prie, que la seule fa£on de raconter la
me me chose & chacun,—la me me chose, entendez-m oi bien,
c ’est d ’en changer la forme selon chaque nouvel esprit.— (410)
Another possibility of point of view exploited by Gide in
Paludes has the effect of creating a dram atic scene, an effect not unique
in fiction but unexpected in the fictionalized diary form. Norman
Friedman classifies one category of point of view as “ multiple Selective
O m niscience,” where the reader observes the action primarily as it is
12
filtered through the minds of the characters. Friedm an divides this
category into two parts: the technique of scene, where the thoughts and
actions are revealed consecutively as they occur in the mind, and the
12
The others are Editorial Omniscience, Neutral Omni
science, “ I” as a witness, “ I” as a protagonist, Selective Omniscience,
the Dramatic Mode, and the Camera viewpoint. “Point of View in F ic
tion: The Development of a C ritical Concept," PMLA, 70 (1955), 1160-
1184.
53
technique of narrative, which gives explanations of these actions after
they have taken place. The diary novel, with its use of the first person,
lies normally somewhere between scene and narrative, for in it the
reader can experience the action concurrently with the narrator, "or at
least experience its future happenings with the same degree of uncer-
13
tainty.” The nature of the diary novel, as distinguished from the
memoir, provides no overall backward view and arrangement of events,
14
"but only some short, concentrated, frequent backward glances,” This
tim e sequence allows the diary novel its measure of im m ediacy. Gide
has expanded the im m ediacy by incorporating dialogue, in the form of
conversations that took place between the narrator and others; conver
sations which were, however, recorded by him and not by the om ni
scient author. Certainly the use of dialogue is linked to Gide’s choice
of the dram atic m edieval sotie as his inspiration. At the same tim e,
Paludes resembles another form, and comedy of manners. The atmos
pheric sim ilarity between Paludes and the comedy of manners results
from their sim ilar methods of characterization: the simplistic concept
of one-dim ensional character and the use of diam etric opposites for con
trast. The point of view in Paludes resembles that of the epistolary
13
Bertil Romberg, Studies in the Narrative Technique of the
First-Person Novel, p. 43.
14
Loc. c it.
54
novel as w ell. The outer book includes a variety of forms: a quatrain
of verse (378, 411), notes on the personalities of the narrator's friends
(380), meditations (37 8, 395), the agenda listing the deeds for the day
(380, 395), numerous dialogues recording the narrator's conversations
with others, and tales within the tale, or the stories told by secondary
narrators, such as Hubert's story of the panther hunt. Like the situation
of the epistolary novel each of these is presented as a written document.
In contrast to the epistolary novel, which often incorporates the letters
of two distinct narrators, the variety of writings in Paludes. the verse,
notes, meditations, agenda, dialogues and tales, are recorded by the
same hand. The employment of different writings does, however, afford
different glimpses of the narrator's personality as he expresses himself
in these forms much as the pace of the epistolary novel is varied by the
different authors of the letters. At the same tim e the writings included
in the outer book contribute to the theme which satirizes the writer of
novels, the materials he uses, and the steps of abstraction involved in
the process. Here the tim e sequences of the writing process are played
off against each other as the narrator assimilates his experiences In the
form of dialogues, notes, meditations, and finally the inner book itself.
Form as Theme: The Mirror Image
The varieties of point of view permitted In the repertoire of
the diary novel Include still another method, one that employs the
55
recorded dialogues of the first-person narrator with other characters, as
IS
indirect indications of his own personality. This is necessitated by
the focus of viewpoint within the narrator's own consciousness, for with
out these dialogues, filtered as they are through the first-person report,
there would be no possibility of an external impression of the narrator.
These dialogues with other characters serve as a mirror to reflect the
narrator's personality as he interacts with, and is perceived by, the other
characters. For example, in the narrator's interactions with Angfele, his
own words in the dialogue reveal the Image of superiority which he holds
of himself. After the Symposium, the literary circle's get-together at
Angele's apartment, the narrator complains first about her seeming lack
of composure, second about the size of the party and the smallness of
her apartment, and third about the ventilator that is too noisy and small
to be effective. To her defense, that he himself looked so excited it
upset her, he replies: "Chfere Angele, c ’est que sinon i'on se seralt
tellem ent ennuyfi . . . " (421). He also insults her mentality, "Je sals
que l'on n'a prgs de vous rien que de petltes pensges" (422). The dia
logues show how the narrator is perceived by others because their words
reflect the external image of his personality. After the narrator has
shown Martin, one of the guests at the Symposium, the quotation from
1 5
Bertil Romberg, Studies in the Narrative Technique of the
First-Person Novel, p. 59.
56
his book, “Tityre sourit,” Martin exclaims, “ Done tu souris parfois! ”
(408). Implicit in this rejoinder is the image of the narrator as a dour
man whose melancholy is regarded as excessive. Several other guests
react also to the narrator's complaint that men do not revolt against their
monotonous lives. Their sarcastic reply, "vous voilS r£volutionnaire?”
(419) reveals their notion of him as perhaps the most sedentary member
of the group. Since there is no commentary by the narrator in his writ
ten record of these dialogues, it would seem that these im plicit evalua
tions of his personality had escaped his notice. Therefore while the
mirrored effect of his external image is lost upon him, its perception by
the reader contributes to the satire of the book.
The mirror effect is implemented in another way in Paludes.
a way in which it surpasses other fictionalized diaries giving an external
impression of Its narrator, through the relationship between the outer
book and the inner book. The inner book, composed by the narrator,
reflects the outer book in three areas: consciousness, behavior, and
aesthetics. In each of these areas the mirror effect is achieved through
the employment of different literary mirror conventions.
The fact of his consciousness both plagues the narrator and
motivates him to write his own book. In his ruminations on the lives of
those around him, he selects only their negative aspects. Since the
flaws are the sole elements to which his mental image of the world is
sensitive, these flaws are distorted out of all perspective. Thus, his
57
mind creates its own illusion, and his eternal com plaint of boredom, his
thoughts and conversation about the necessity for decisive action, bear
only an oblique and theoretical relationship to the practical reality of
his own life. This concept of the mind as a mirror can certainly be
found, with widely divergent im plications, as far back in literature as
the Bible. Cassiodorus, for instance, compares the human mind to a
mirror, “speculum mentis,” while the Bible presents two different inter
pretations of the concept: the wisdom of the mind as a mirror of God;
and the fallible nature of human knowledge, or the distortions inherent
in human as opposed to Divine Knowledge, “Videmus nunc per specu-
16
lum in aenigm ate” (I Cor. 13: 12). Although the religious orientation
of the concept has been om itted, the “Pauline mirror through which we
17
see an enigm a” due to the im perfect nature of human knowledge
seems to be the tradition behind the narrator's distorted m ental mirror of
consciousness portrayed in Paludes.
A second literary mirror tradition, the Ovldian mirror, seems
also recalled by the function of the narrator’s mind which, through its
concentration on the flaws of life, indirectly implies a reverse ideal
towards which man should strive. Thus, the narrator claim s that if
16
These citations are all mentioned in Ernst R. Curtius,
European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, p. 336.
17
Frederick Goldin, The Mirror of Narcissus in the Courtly
Love Lyric (Ithaca, N .Y .: 1967), p. 17.
58
Angele were enlightened as to the true nature of her dull life, she would
seek something better (389). The Ovidlan mirror Is also known as the
mirror of Narcissus, since it incorporates two aspects of the mirror func-
18
tion, the ideal image presented, and the fact that this im age is only a
passive illusion. Narcissus saw his own reflection, as we know, an image
of extraordinary beauty, and fell in love with it despite the fact that it
was not alive and that he could never fulfill his desire to em brace It.
The passive Illusion functioned to mislead him, to deceive him through
his own vanity. In sim ilar fashion, the narrator’s mirror of consciousness
has indirectly inspired him with an ideal. Although his own image of
the world is totally negative, he commits the same error as Narcissus;
he mistakes the passive illusion of his own mind for reality. His image is
static, and he cannot get beyond it. He is trapped into a fruitless repe
tition of the same meditations upon boredom, a “dwelling upon” the
features of his fixed im age. The result is an eloquent demonstration of
the Pauline mirror, showing the sterility of the obsessed, impaired
human mind.
The second area in which several literary mirror conventions
appear is that of behavior. The acts of futile healing and hunting that
take place in the outer book are paralleled, either directly or Indirectly,
18
Goldin states; “ Nothing, in its actual existence, is so
beautiful as its reflected im age, so defined in shape, so pure in color. In
H
ansmutlng the object from substance to Image, the mirror purifies it
xes Is, above all the transformations of flesh and the spirit^ (p. 77).
59
in the inner book as w ell. Tityre hopes to heal the workmen at the salt
mines with the m edicinal herbs he has found in the marsh. No one is ill
at the salt mines, however, and in order not to waste the herbs, Tityre
catches fever himself (429). Tityre's desire to heal others and his con
sequent reflexive illness reflects the narrator's own predicament: In
attem pting to awaken others to their “true” condition, he has become
obsessed with the malady him self. In addition, the disastrous, sadistic
hunting expeditions related by the narrator and his friend Hubert are pre
sented inversely In the inner book through a satire on the masochistic
doctrines of the Church. A priest tells Tityre that the shooting of game
Is forbidden; instead, he encourages Tityre to eat mudworms, a practice
the Church advocates as a form of self-discipline (387). Significantly,
the behavior and personality of Tityre, so content In his marshland
existence, provides the function of the mirror as self-im age in relation
to the narrator. In deliberately creating a character who Is hopelessly
ignorant of his miserable life (382), the narrator has unwittingly reflected
him self in the context of his own environm ent. Like Narcissus, the nar
rator cannot see this image of him self for what it is because his own
vanity and sense of superiority have blinded him . He does not see his
own ludicrous position In relation to Angele, the woman whom he wishes
to enlighten, the woman pursued by another man whom the narrator does
not recognize as more attractive to her than himself. He does not under
stand the amusement of his friends whenever he discusses spontaneous
60
action, decisive changes, and the benefits of realizing one's monotony.
The main character of the inner book mirrors the main character of the
outer book in much the same way that Pirandello uses the mirror as a
dram atic device in Henry IV to show the mask which has become the
19
man, the role that has become reality. Like this Henry IV, the narra
tor has lost all distance from his role. He cannot distinguish between the
mask of teacher and his own face, he does not see his own need for
instruction. He has written the Diary of Tityre as an expose of com pla
cency much as the medieval writers wrote their “Mirrors” for the edifica
tion of their readers, not as they commonly did by holding up models for
em ulation, but rather by the less common practice of showing the results
of evil in a warning m irror. As we have seen, however, the warning
20
mirror for others becomes in fact an ironic mirror of the narrator him
self, for it simply gives his own self-im age in reverse.
The alternation of the images produced by the outer book
and its ironic mirror, the inner book, results in confusion concerning the
19
Robert Brustein, The Theatre of Revolt (Boston: 1964),
pp. 288, 297.
20
Curtius notes that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
the Mirror often becam e used as a book title, first as an instrument of
improvement and later, as we see here in the narrator's book, as a means
for instruction by warning (p. 336). The mirror's function was to enable
a man to know himself better, or rather, to know the possibilities of his
human nature. Boccacio's method of instruction has been likened to this
kind of mirror, as has been the sixteenth-century Mirror for M agistrates.
Lily B. Campbell, Shakespeare's Ttagtc Heroes (New York: 1966),
pp. 5, 6, 50.
61
precise nature of the satire * The Interplay between the narrator, discon
tent because he Is aware of the monotonous regularity created by the
accepted customs of his circle, and Tityre, happy In the meagerness of
his life because he Is unaware of Its negative aspects, achieves the effect
of “executive irony,” which does not replace what it destroys with any
21
positive value, but which exists for its own sake. It is difficult to locae
the focus of ridicule in Paludes since the two opposites, the narrator and
Tityre, are mutually deflated by their polarity. The fact that Gide was
well aware of this effect may be seen by his question, “satire de quo!7*
which the reader will recall in his dedication of Paludes. Whether Gide
is indirectly advocating irrationalism and the hope that “meaning and
value will somehow spring from the rejection of reason and the abandon-
22
ment to the plenitude of life,” as one critic asserts; whether he secretly
approves of the narrator’s ideas despite his mockery of them, as another
23
critic maintains, cannot be deduced from Paludes itself. These critical
opinions seem to be based on the external evidence of Gide’s later work,
Les Nourrttures terrestres. in which such values as irrationalism and free
dom from the constraints of custom, family, and country are unequivo
cally upheld.
21
Sdren Kierkegaard, The Concent of Irony, trans. Lee M.
Capel (New York: 1966), p. 272.
22W. Wolfgang Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel.
pp. 178-179.
23
A. J, Guerard, Andre Gide. p. 71.
62
Another type of Irony in Paludes Is the more familiar dra*
matic irony, In which the spectator or reader is aware of elements
unknown to the main character. The narrator’s ignorance of his inti
mate relationship to Tityre and to the habits he despises introduces the
theme of blindness, a theme which was to become a hallmark of Gide’s
24
work. A related theme Is that of the house, “of that restricted place
2S
that prevents a character from seeing anything outside it." The house
can be seen to represent the restrictions of the physical body in tim e and
space. Where the house presents this analogy to the body, its windows
are naturally analogous to the eyes, eyes that are limited to only one
viewpoint, one outlook on reality that distorts the total picture by virtue
of its restricted angle. In Paludes. the window metaphor combines all
three of these meanings. Windows are mentioned no less than twelve
26
times, and they perform the function of a linking image to connect the
themes of blindness or restricted viewpoint, and the illusion of the ironic
24
Wallace Fowlie traces the theme of blindness in Andrg
Walter. La Svmphonie pastorale, and Oedioe. We may infer that in Les
Cahiers “ It would be related to the ‘ evil eye* able to cast a spell over a
man and obsess his conscience. It is the nocturnal eye of evil obsessions,
the eye that needs to be gouged out. . . . Twice, Gide places side by
side in the same work the types of blind characters: in La Svrnphonie
pastorale, with Gertrude and the pastor; and in Oedioe. with Oedipus and
TirSsias. Andr£ Gide (New York: 1965), pp. 193-194,
25
Ibid. . p. 194.
26
PC. pp. 371, 378, 386, 412, 438, 439, 440, 443, 449,
450, 454.
63
or reverse mirror that distorts self-im age. In the first sentence of
Paludes. the narrator tells how he shut his windows and returned to his
writing (371). This sentence Imm ediately projects his blindness to the
nature and content of his writing. In shutting the windows he is shutting
his eyes, voluntarily restricting his angle of vision. The narrator's
aversion to the unpleasant reality of him self may be seen In the next
appearance of the window metaphor, when he complains about the win
dows in Angele's apartment that look out only on other walls or back
yards (378). In this com m ent he reveals his quickness to criticize others
and his lim itations in self-knowledge. The fact that writing his book
allows him to escape from himself and from reality Is emphasized by the
exaggerated eloquence of his vocabulary and diction as he watches the
sunrise: La vitre ou le m atin rulsselle .» . non . . , le m atin ou palit
la vitre . . ( 4 3 9 ) . His vision is so refracted that he cannot integrate
the details of his view whenever he does look outside himself. Thus, he
shuts the window abruptly, complaining of the unpleasant chill, after he
has seen the chaos of the street, a chaos generated by the Inadequate
vision that can only isolate the separate fragments: “Que vols-je 7*
— TTois marchands de legumes passent.
— Un omnibus d£jft.
— Un portier balale devant sa porte.
— Les boutlquiers rafralchlssent leur devanture.
— L a cuisiniSre part pour le march£.
— Des col ldg lens vont & l ’£cole.
— Les kiosques re go 1 vent les joum aux; des messieurs
presses les achetent.
— On po9e les tables d ’un caf£ . . . (440)
64
The central meaning of the window metaphor, the impossibility of
escaping one’s own viewpoint, is emphasized by the following passage on
windows:
“Que de fois, cherchant un peu d'air, suffocant^ j'a i
connu le geste d'ouvrtr des fenetres— et je me suis arret£,
sans espoir, parce qu'une fois, les ayant ouvertes ..
“Vous aviez pris froid T dit Angele.
"... Parce qu’une fois, les ayant ouvertes, j'a i vu
qu'elles donnaient sur des cours—ou sur d'autres salles vout^es—
sur des cours mis£rables, sans soleil et sans air —et q ’alors,
ayant vu cela, par d£tresse, je crial de toutes mes forces:
Seigneur! Seigneur! nous sommes terriblement enferm£s!”
(450-451)
In a direct allusion to the distorted illusion presented by that
ironic mirror of himself, Tityre, the narrator unwittingly comments upon
the window-panes of tinted glass that discolor and refract the natural day
light (443-444). The window ventilator Installed by AngSle to please
the narrator and to elim inate his complaints about her airless apartment
(412, 421) presents another aspect of the obstacles blocking his sight.
At the end of the work, the narrator closes his windows again
and begins writing Polders, the sequel to Paludes (454), The desire to
open the window (386, 439), to open one’s eyes, is successfully evaded
and the narrator's enclosed blindness is self-perpetuated.
Other attributes of the house are utilized In metaphors that
embody the concepts of the self enclosed in an artificial construct, stifled
by the inhibitions of civilization, family, and personality, and consumed
by the desire to escape. The narrow rooms that the narrator despises
65
(386, 433, 438) and the doors that he wishes vainly to open (424, 429)
suggest these interpretations.
A dram atic irony functions through the use of the window
metaphor to make visible for the reader what is invisible to the narrator.
At the same tim e, the window metaphor reinforces the double-edged
vision of the work as a whole. This ironic ambiguity also characterizes
the m inor of aesthetics presented by Paludes in its underlying comments
upon art in relation to reality.
Form as Theme: The Aesthetic Mirror
The juxtaposition of the outer book in which the reader sees
the narrator in his own m ilieu, and the inner book where the elem ents of
the narrator’s m entality and experience are transformed, provides an
im plicit com m entary upon the relation of art to life. Different aesthetic
theories dealing with the m im etic quality of art underline the possible
interpretations of art as a mirror suggested in Paludes.
The Platonic concept of art as a deceptive illusion, or as an
im itation of an im itation, dominates Paludes because of G ide’s satiric
treatm ent of the writer. The narrator is ’‘out of life," consumed by his
desire to artlflcialize in hts work the reality around him . Like the
character TTeplev In Chekov’s The Sea Gull, the narrator’s compulsion
to record events in his notebook interferes with hts spontaneous participa
tion in the events themselves. For exam ple, while he is writing about
66
Richard’s character he Is irritated by Richard’s entrance into his study
because he cannot think about people when they are present (323). The
notes have assumed more importance to him than the people themselves.
When Martin interrupts the narrator’ s notations, he declares, “Mon cher,
bonsoir. Je suis en train de t*£crire; ne me derange pas. Tu m ’atten-
dras U -haut sur la banquette” (404),
The discrepancy between the artist’s vision and the “real”
world is openly satirized in the narrator’s insistence upon viewing others
in terms of his initial impressions of them , no m atter what inconsisten
cies these impressions may bear with his later experiences. He forcibly
retains his perception of Angele as a fragile creature unfit for sexual
pleasure despite the fact that she directly offers herself to him (446),
The narrator's failure in life is deliberately related to his love of artifice,
of illusion, and of escape. For this reason, when he repeats that the
surrounding monotony is bearable for him because he is writing the Diary
of Tltyre (377, 382), the false and ridiculous pomposity of his occupa
tion becomes apparent.
The Aristotelian concept of art as a mirror that improves,
heightens, and intensifies reality may be seen in the narrator’s defense of
his transformation of factual detail. In this context the reader will recall
his argument to AngSle, who protests his distortion of fact. He maintains
that his fictional rearrangement has remained true to the emotion the
67
facts themselves aroused (392), Indeed, that In his art these facts conform
to truth more closely than they do in real life (396).
Two later theories of aesthetic mimesis are also suggested by
the mirrors of Paludes. The doctrine of romantic irony, which stressed
the deliberate shattering of the artistic illusion, attem pted to present art
openly in its capacity as a mirror or illusion in order to remind the reader
of the presence of the art work instead of causing him to forget its pres
ence In the interests of credible reality. Some works of the rom antic
authors Ludwig, Tieck , Goethe and Heine, drew a distinct line between
reality and illusion, a line the authors wished to impress upon the reader.
In Paludes. however, an antithetical purpose is served by the many
reminders of the art work and the author's presence. Here the purpose is
to show that there is no line between illusion and reality since the narra
tor's own view of reality is false. In this case, Paludes is close to the
modem doctrines of aesthetic mimesis expressed by the relativism which
asserts that all views of reality, whether in art or in life, are stylized by
the lim itations of their angles of vision in tim e and space. The experi
ment of Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet was based upon this
doctrine, and it relied upon the mirror as a symbolic and structural
device to portray four different fictional reflections of the same reality in
the minds of Its central characters. The fact that aesthetic mimesis has
changed since Aristotle originally described it does not elim inate the
importance of the cognitive elem ent in form, its “contact with form
68
27
in nature,” and Its dependence upon the structure im plicit in the work-
28
ings of the mind. The m imetic relationship between art and reality
will remain constant, in the sense that art will continue to reflect a
specific concept of reality, however obscured that view may be by the
techniques of narration.
The intermingling of form and theme is utilized at particu
lar points in Paludes to show the indistinguishable demarcation between
reality and illusion, reality and a n . During the narrator’ s declamations
on the ugliness and increasing size of towns, Hubert interrupts to tell him
he should include these opinions in Paludes. his book, otherwise known
by Its subtitle, The Diary of Tltvre. The Irritated narrator replies that
these opinions are already in Paludes (403). The inner and outer books
suddenly merge as the reader grasps the implication that illusion within
reality is infinitely regressive. Again, when the narrator’s friends ask
him the subject of his book during the night of Angele’ s party, he
declares that presently Paludes is the story of Angele’s drawing room
(410). Just prior to their departure to the country, Angele begins the
27
John D, Boyd, The Function of Mimesis and its Decline
(Cambridge, Mass.: 1963), p. 52.
28
Ibid. Boyd goes on to say, “There is a sense in which,
for all the immense advances since Aristotle’s day, every healthy
poetic theory must respect this basic realism in a transcendent way.
Themes must be humanly valid and, to be achieved, they must
derive from the ‘given* quality Involved In all experience” ft). 55).
69
fam iliar advice to include some thought in his book, and the narrator
interrupts:
. . . Ah! par piti6 n'achevez pas, chere am ie—et ne me
dites pas que je devrals mettre cela dans Paludes. — D’abord
9a y est d£ja—et puls vous n’avez pas Scout£— (439)
The effect of these abrupt mergers is to give the inner book an almost
third-dimensional quality, so palpable does its form seem at these
moments when the fiction permeates its boundaries into the "realtty'1 ' out
side. The inner book assumes an almost living quality in its expansion
beyond the container of the narrator’s narrative, much as the characters
of Cervantes seem to leap off the page as they "casually cross the fluctu-
29
ating line between imagination and reality." Indeed, the parallel
between the narrator of Paludes and the celebrated Don Quixote him
self becomes readily apparent in their mutual confusions between
reality and illusion.
The spatial perception aroused in the reader by the expan
sion of the inner book beyond its boundaries is strikingly similar to
the spatial nature of the reflexive relations among the units of
Joseph E. Glllet, "The Autonomous Character in Spanish
and European Literature," Hispanic Review. XXIV (1956), 180. In this
penetrating study, Gillet notes also that "Reality, on the other hand, may
suddenly emerge from the fiction. Cervantes at one point turns directly
to his L ittle Gypsy to warn her about the next step . . . the world around
the fictional character is suddenly transformed into one of reality, In
which they are masters of their fate ”
30
meaning employed In modern literature. In Paludes. this reflexive
principle functions as It does in the County Fair scene of Flaubert's
Madame Bovarv; the chronological tim e flow of the narrative ceases,
and the focus is devoted to various events taking place at the same time
31
but at different points in space. Thus the reader achieves a reflexlvely
instantaneous “unification of disparate ideas and emotions into a com-
3 2
plex presented spatially in an Instant of tim e.” The reader must make
use of this reflexive principle to grasp the full implications of the “for
m alizing” writing process in Paludes. as the narrator selects and
abstracts from reality details for his inner book, at the same tim e that
the “reality” surrounding him Is being presented. One of the most
interesting selections from the book within the book Is theoretically
30
Joseph Frank, “Spatial Form in Modern Literature,"
Sewanee Review. LIII, No. 2 (1945), 301-340. This article explains
the spatial nature of modem literature. It argues the application of
Lessing's famous description of literature as the medium of words in
tim e, by pointing out that modern poetry is based on the reflexive prin
ciple. “ Since the primary reference of any word-group is to something
inside the poem itself, language in modern poetry is really reflexive:
the meaning relationship Is completed only by the spontaneous percep
tion in space of word groups which, when read consecutively in tim e,
have no comprehensible relation to each other” (p. 229).
31
Frank describes the reflexive process as it operates In this
scene from Flaubert's novel: “For the duration of the scene, at least,
the time-flow of the narrative is halted: attention is fixed on the inter
play of relationships within the lim ited time area. These relationships
are juxtaposed independently of the progress of the narrative; and the
full significance of the scene is given only by the reflexive relations
among the units of meaning” (p. 231).
71
presented almost Im m ediately In the act of its composition by the narra
tor. This effect of im m ediacy is an illusion created by Gtde as he
m anipulates the tim e sequence at will:
— Entre to us. les grands pay sages plats nT attirentr-
les landes m onotones. — et 1 ’aurais fait de longs voyages
pour trouver des pa vs d^tan g s. m ats 1*en trouve tci out
m ’entourent.— Ne crovez pas & cela que 1e sols triste; ie
ne suis m em e pas m ^lancollque: ie suts Titvre et solitaire
et i'a lm e un pavsage atnsi qu'un livre. aui ne m e distrait
pas de m a pensge. Car elle est triste. m a pensge: elle est
s&leuse. et m em e. pr&s des autres. morose: ie Taim e plus
que tout, et c'est parce que Ie IV promene que ie cherche
surtout les plalnes. les gtanes sans sour ires, les landes. Te
IV prom&ne doucem ent.
Pourquoi m a pens£e est-e lle triste? — Si 1 'en avals
souffert ie me le serais plus sou vent dem and^. Si vous ne
ra v le z pas fait rem arouer. Ie ne l'aurais peut-etre pas su.
car souvent elle s’amuse & beaucoup de choses qui ne vous
interessent pas du tout. Ainsi elle se p la it & re I ire ces
lignes: elle ptend sa lole & de toutes petites besognes o u 'il
est inutile oue ie vous dise parce que vous ne les recon-
naltriez pas . . .
Un air presque tiede soufflait; au-dSssus de l'eau de
freles gramens se penchaient que firent ployer des insectes.
Une poussge germ inative dlsjoignait les marges de pierres;
un peu d ’eau s'enfuyait, hum ectalt les raclnes. Des mousses,
jusqu’au fond descendues, faisaient une profondeur avec
1'om bre: des algues glauques retenalent des bulles d ’air
pour la respiration des larves. Un hydrophile vint & passer.
Je ne pus retenir une pens£e poetique et, sortant un nouveau
feulllet de m a poche, j'& riv als:
T ltyre sourit. (390- 391)
The reflexive, spatially oriented perception of the reader functions to
reveal the fact that the paragraphs are not chronologically consecutive
but are occurring a t the sam e m om ent, enabling the reader to evaluate
the process of artistic selectiveness. The narrator him self is sitting,
72
w hile composing, in a botanical landscape which he describes In much
m ore com plete, factual detail as part of his own diary-entry, in con
trast to the sam e description in his book as seen in the first two para
graphs. The difference between the abstract, general nouns such as
“ landes,” “£tangs,” “ plaines,” given in the narrator’s book, and the
specific, concrete botanical specim ens mentioned in the diary passage,
exem plifies the process of selection, abstraction, and ordering experi
enced by every author. At the same tim e it com m ents upon art as an
artifact, a creation deliberately designed to sustain an illusion of
reality .
In addition, a related aesthetic issue, the duality of the
ambiguous relationship existing between every author and his created
characters, is generated by the second paragraph of the three which con
cludes the segment from the inner book and precedes the diary entry.
While the created character is only a persona, a mask in no way identi
fiable with the actual author either in opinions or in behavior, there
exists nonetheless a certain sym pathetic bond between author and char
acter because, after all, the author conceived of the character in the
first place. Thus, the two are not so totally disparate as two strangers
who m ight, after a conversation, exclaim that they never im agined
anyone could think In the fashion they had just heard expressed by each
other. In the aforem entioned passage, the question of who is speaking
to whom in paragraph two, is so com plex that it requires a m ulti-level
73
analysis. The analogy of the book within the book to a Chinese box
arrangem ent, with each box opening onto a sm aller box just as the nar
rator’s narrative Includes another narrator, Is appropriate In terms of the
33
added spatial abstractions it affords. In the closing sentences of the
passage from Tltyre’s diary,
elle souvent s’a muse & beaucoup de choses qul ne vous lnt£res-
sent pas du tout. Ainsl elle se plait & relire ces lignes; elle
prend sa jole & de toutes petltes be9ognes qu’il est inutile que
je vous dise parce que vous ne les reconnaltrlez pas . . .
the “ vous” Is ambiguous. The pronoun may refer to us, the readers. On
the other hand, the narrator has been at great pains to distinguish be
tween himself and his character, Tityre; hence the “ vous” may indicate
the narrator-author re-reading his own lines. In this sense he Is speak
ing to himself, or rather, the Tityre of his creation Is speaking to its
creator. In this case we are led to a unique concept of a com pletely
herm etic work of fiction in which the narrator-wrlter is also the reader,
a phenomenon producing an autonomy. Form has become them e to die
extent that the two are indistinguishable, because the reading experi
ence through which the form is gradually perceived is incorporated as a
them e in itself.
The ambiguous relationship between the author and his nar
rator receives much attention in Paludes. It contributes a major portion
33
Bertil Romberg, Studies in the Narrative Technique of the
First-Person Novel, pp. 8, 34, 64, 340n.
to the explorations of the congruences between artistic Illusions and the
Illusions of reality. Details of the ambiguous relationship between an
author and his narrator are provided by Angus Wilson, a novelist who
describes his own experience with this phenomenon. Wilson m aintains
that the division of personality between the narrating part of the author
34
and the rest of him is not only a very real division, but a valuable one.
He goes on to discuss the process and function of this division in a
description that precisely parallels the process of narrating that is a
major subject of Paludes:
Then this regular rhythm of the narrating voice inside acts as
a guard against the cares and pleasures of daily life. . . .
Yet it is not only as a guard against ordinary life that the
narrator acts, he also prevents the intrusion of the author’s
own gossiping, dally voice with its particular but irrelevant
com ment like the quotation or motto on the calendar. . . .
The narrator will prevent catastrophic events in the author’s
life engulfing and overwhelming the author’s fiction . . .
[ the narrator also protects against] . . . the intrusion of
Ideas that have no part in the book but com e from the daily
intellectual clim ate the novelist lives in—a sort of highbrow
gossip.®
Wilson’s analysis may be applied to the entire outer level of Paludes.
the surface book that reveals the narrator’s disastrous attem pts to guard
against life ’s pleasures, his struggle against the dally but irrelevant com
ments, quotations, and agenda; his happy escape into writing from the
34
“Novelist and the Narrator.” Enfflish Studies Todav. VII
(1961), 44. ------------------------
36
75
disappointment of the sojourn with Angele, and his encounters with the
highbrow gossip and ideas of his literary circle. The fact that the nar
rator of Paludes is given no name reinforces the outer-level interpreta
tion of the work as a satirical allegory on the split between narrator and
author.
The overall structure of Paludes manifests a contradictory
impulse due to the distinction between the surface story and the inner
book. While the surface work, the external diary dated from Tuesday
to Sunday concerning the repetitive life of the narrator is circular in
3 6
chronological and thematic movement, the minor relationship
between inner and outer books creates a linear, reflexive movement as
the two opposing worlds of Actional “reality*' and inner fiction are alter
nately played off against one another. Two striking results are accom
plished by this reflection phenomenon in Paludes: first, the ordinary
concept of mimesis, of art “reflecting*' life, is raised to the second
power much as a mathematical square. Second, the effect of the
reflexive reference engendered in the reader’ s perception allows him
momentarily to transcend the limited viewpoint inherent in his fixed
position in time and space. These results are perhaps the most signifi
cant contributions of Gide’s fourth work to the evolution of prose fiction.
Germaine Br£e, Gide. p. 59.
CHAPTER III
THE BOOK AS LIFE
It is a measure of Glde's success that his novel, Les Faux-
Monnaveurs. is so difficult to criticize. Its resistance to analysis is
caused by the lim itation imposed upon the critic by the selection of an
approach to this vast work. No treatm ent of the characters, plot and
them es of Les Faux-Monnaveurs can do more than awkwardly rearrange
the contents that are best experienced in reading the work itself. There
fore in our attem pt to isolate a few main cords from the Interwoven
novel, we must bear in mind that the pulling of one may result in knot
ting the mass.
Les Faux-Monnaveurs has such peculiar Impact upon its
readers that the effort to articulate its impression has acquired a fascina-
l
tion all its own. A pervasive dissatisfaction, a disappointing sense of
2 3 4
fragm entation, an uneasiness, an impression of discontinuity, and
*Naoml Lebowitz, “The Counterfeiters and the Epic Pretence'/
University of Toronto Quarterly. XXXIII, No. 3 (April, 1964), 291.
2Ib id .. p. 293.
3Harold March, Gide and the Hound of Heaven, p. 288,
4
Carlos Lynes, “ Andr£ Gide and the Problem of Form in the
Novel," The Southern Review. VII (1941), 70.
76
77
5
even a feeling of basic disorientation are not uncommon descriptions.
These responses have been attributed to weaknesses in the novel such as
6 7
its atmosphere of perversion or of Protean elusiveness, its method of
8
composition, such as its startling juxtaposition of novel and critique, or
the fact that Gide deliberately wrote each chapter as a self-contained
9
unit floating free from the rest, in the effort to, as he said In the jour
nal (13:50), "ne jam ais prof iter de'elfin acquis/’ The reader collabora
tion required by this method of composition creates a mental gymnas-
1 0
tics and the suspicion that Gide is showing off.
The reader's discomfort may have other than negative
foundations. The sensation of formlessness may be a calculated effect
to support a major theme, adolescent exposure to change and subsequent
li
growth. The reader's discomfort may be a barometer of Les
p. 237.
p. 237.
5
Wolfgang Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel.
6
Gide and the Hound of Heaven, p. 288.
7
Theory and Practice of the Novel, p. 237.
8
Wolfgang Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel.
9
Carlos Lynes, "Andrfi Gide and the Problem of Form In
the Novel,” p. 170.
1 0
Ibid. . p. 172.
ll
Justin O'Brien, Portrait of Andrfi Gide. p. 342.
78
12
Faux-Monnaveurs’ complex texture of Ideas, experiences and themes,
or it may be a stimulus to future novelists who read the work as a diag-
13
nostic composite of fiction potential. It certainly provides aesthetic
pleasure for the critic who enjoys struggling with the problematic dis
parity between the depth of Gide's vision and the narrowness of the scope
14
of his world.
The characters of Les Faux-Monnaveurs may be considered
from four different angles; social, moral, structural, and plot orienta
tion. The social units Into which the characters fall most easily are
those of family and generation. One of the basic families is the Azais-
Vedel group which consists of old Azats and his son-in-law Vedel, each
of whom is a Protestant minister; and the Vedel children Rachel, Laura,
Sarah and Armand. Another family is the Moliniers, the magistrate
Oscar and his wife, and their children Vincent, Olivier, and Georges.
12
Wolfgang Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel.
p. 235.
13
Naomi Lebowitz, * * fhe Counterfeiters and the Epic Pre
tence," p. 293. Benjamin Cremleux describes Gide’s aim in this, his
only novel: “de proposer des themes vivants sur lesquels exercer leur
jugement, des figures stylls€es en qui se retrouver, se multiplier et se
crttiquer. Au lieu d'une peinture immobile, statlque, c ’est une pein-
ture dynamique, transformable que doit reallser le romancier.” “Andrl
Gtde et Fart du roman," Horn mage & Andre Gide (Paris; 1927), p. 93.
M
Germaine Bree, "Tim e Sequences and Consequences in
the Gidian World,” Yale French Studies, No. 7 (1951), p. 52.
79
IS
These two groups are allied through Laura Vedel. Before the work
opens, Laura has married the weak-kneed Professor Douviers, and she
has subsequently become pregnant by Vincent Mollnier during their con
valescence from tuberculosis at the same sanitarium . Still a third im
portant family is the Profitiendieu group. The boy Bernard Profltien-
dieu leaves home upon discovering his Illegitim acy.
In addition to the basic families, there are chief individu-
16
als from whom the action seems to em anate. First there is the novel
ist Edouard, half-brother of Madame Oscar Molinier, who seeks to
write about the other figures in Les Faux-M onnaveurs. He is opposed
by the writer Passavant who courts only the most superficial literary
tastes and com petes for the affection of Olivier M ollnier. The two
remaining individuals of importance in generating the action are the
elusive Strouvllhou, leader of the counterfeit gang, and old La P£rouse,
the music teacher whose grandson Boris com m its suicide at the end of
Les Faux-M onnaveurs. The attention given to the family as a unit pro-
17
vides one of the basic themes, the decay of the m iddle-class family,
15
Harold March, Gide and the Houng of Heaven (New York:
1961), p. 278.
16
Wolfgang Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel.
p. 238.
17
Justin O'Brien, Portrait of Andrg Gide: A C ritical Biogra
phy (New York: 1964), p. 199.
80
a them e that Is explored from another point of view as well, the social
focus which separates the characters by generations. The novelist
Edouard, at the age of thirty-six, m ediates the division between the
18
elders and those under forty. Seen from this focus, Bernard Profitien-
dieu and Olivier Mollnier are the protagonists of a Bildungsroman. which
expresses the need for the young to escape the restrictions of their elders
19
in order to achieve their full potentiality. Thus Bernard leaves home
to pursue his own individualism according to the epic pattern of the
20
prodigal son's journey.
18
Germaine BrSe, Gide (Rutgers: 1963), p. 233. Martin
Turnell, an otherwise astute critic of French novels, sees Edouard's
position as mediator as follows:
“G ide’s protagonist is placed In the position of an old boy who
looks in on the activities of the younger generation. This
enables Gide to combine the functions of novelist and voyeur,
and to obtain a vicarious satisfaction from the spectacle of
childish corruption and crim e” (The Art of French Fiction, p. 265k
Pierre Lafille, on the other hand, describes Edouard's posi
tion more correctly:
"Seul exlste un personnage central qul est Edouard, le roman-
cier. c'est & lui que viennent tous les fils. C ’ est lui qui relie
des £l£ments desparates. II est ce mirolr central qui, objec-
tivem ent ou subjectivement reflate les personnages ou les actes
qul passent ou s’agitent autour de lui” (Andr£ Gide rom ancler
[Paris: 1954], p. 103).
19
Albert J. Guerard, Andr£jGlde (New York: 1963), p. 157.
20
Naomi Lebowltz, " The Counterfeiters and the Epic Pre
tence,” University of Toronto Quarterly. XXX (1964), 295.
“ The Counterfeiters supplied Bernard with many of the agencies
of the epic-rom ance form: the bastard who reclaim s the family,
the sirens of tem ptation and the dragons of enslavement, the
quest, the lady in distress, the supernatural, the cycle of
separation-initiation-return” (p. 307).
81
Les Faux-Monnaveurs Invites also a moral interpretation.
It has been seen as an allegory of a battle of conscience, with the char-
21
acters representing forces in dialogue within the conscience. The
characters have also been classified according to their relative percep
tions of good and evil. The old minister Azals, who acknowledges
only good and who therefore forces everyone to lie to him, is diam etri
cally opposed by Strouvilhou, the man who recognizes and exploits
2 2
evil. Vincent Mollnier is the contrast of Bernard in his accom moda
tion of the devil, when the devil is defined as the principle of self-
23
assertion and his counterpart, the angel, is defined as self-sacrifice.
A further refinem ent of this view maintains that the characters of Les
Faux-Monnaveurs exist in four kinds of relationships to the devil: two
based on denial of his existence and the remaining two upon recognition
21
This is Jacques Levy's famous Catholic interpretation
as noted by Wallace Fowlie in Andrg Gide: His Life in Art (New
York: M acmillan, 1965), p. 162. The action of the book is seen
to be the assault made on the soul by grace, and the ending In
Boris' suicide as “G lde’s spiritual death as he renounces conversion.”
22
Germain Br€e, Gide (New Jersey: 1963), p . 240.
23
Harold March, Gide and the Hound of Heaven, p. 287.
82
2 4
of It. A contrasting opinion argues that in Les Faux-Monnaveurs the
25 26
devil is only theoretical, indeed that it is only a figure of speech,
and that, unlike Kafka, Zola and Dostoevsky, Gide falls to embody the
27
force of evil in his work. On the other hand, the devil may be defined
as the belief in determinism that inspires only resignation and stagnation
the attitude taken by La P£rouse as opposed to the freedom of evolving
28
Bernard.
Irvin Stock, "A View of Les Faux-M onnaveurs.” Yale
French Studies. No. 4 (1951), p. 77. Denial is exem plified by Azals
and Vedel who believe themselves exem pt from evil influence because
of their virtue, and also by the unim aginative Douvlers who was incapa
ble of suspecting his own motives. Recognition of the devil's existence
may be seen on the one hand in Vincent Mollnier and Lady Griffith who
become his “ votaries" in their devotion to sensual pleasure, and on the
other hand In the “wise” who “acknowledge the existence of the devil
as adversary.” This view maintains that Edouard, like most of us, can
“belong only interm ittently to the category of the wise” floe, c it.).
25
Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel, p. 244.
Holdheim argues that this “ ‘mythical* dimension of Les Faux-
Monnaveurs Is in Its essence purely hypothetical, it Is still another
instance of intellectual dilution. The work goes through the motions of
omnivorousness, but its voracity seems confined to liquefied food” (244-
245).
26
Jean Hytler, Andrg Gide (Chariot: 1945), p. 307.
27
Albert J. Guerard, Andre Gide. pp. 151-152. Guerard
sees this failure as a major shortcoming in the work. “The obscure
character of Strouvilhou is perhaps all that remains of Gide*s plan to
present a diabolic and secret force working behind the scenes. But
when Strouvilhou appears in the flesh to talk with the Comte de Passa-
vant he seems m erely a disappointed disciple of Nietzche.”
26
Naomi Lebowltz, “ Counterfeiters and the Epic Pretence,
University of Toronto Quarterly (1964). p. 302.
83
Access to the characters of Les Faux-Monnaveurs may also
come from the structural direction, or the grouping of figures according
to the pattern of their appearances and the length of tim e that they
occupy the reader’ s attention. The concept of major and minor charac
ters, normally based upon the importance of role, would place Edouard
at the center of this novel because he assumes the position of commen-
29
tator despite his marginal involvement in the action. The characters
appear in the following pattern: each occupies a single, temporary focus
as he or she becomes the object of narrative attention. However, the
point of view taken toward the characters does not remain stationary. It
does not function like the descriptive tour guide of traditional realism
who gives the reader a detailed visual picture, but, rather like a miner
with his lantern, it sheds a single spot of light and leaves the rest in
shadow. Gide himself stated in his journal, “ Etudier d’abord le point
d ’ ou doit affluer la lum lere; toutes les ombres en dependent. Chaque
a o
figure repose et s’appuie sur son ombre.” Because of his concern with
the source of light and Its effect upon the perception of the gestalt,
G ide’s method has been compared to the visual arts, and particularly to
the cubists with their distortion of the object's three-dimensional depth
29
Justin O'Brien, Portrait of Andrg Gide. p. 195.
30
“Journal Faux-Monnayeurs,” OC. XIII (Jan. 2, 1921), 19.
Unless otherwise noted, the page numbers in this chapter will refer to
Vol. XII of the Oeuvres Completes.
84
3 1
as a result of their tracing of surfaces, and to the methods of the
32
Baroque period with its fleeting equilibriums. It is not surprising, ther\
that the characters of Les Faux-Monnaveurs have been accused of being
33
insubstantially delineated and Indeed so inadequately unified that the
34
plot disintegrates easily into separate rgcits. On the other hand, Gide’s
"narrative perspectivism,” which deliberately fragments reality and
as
produces a temporal deconcentration, is a system which, as it were,
did not ever concern Itself with traditional novel unity in the first place.
The characters of Les Faux-Monnaveurs may also be con
sidered from the aspect of the plot to determine whether there is any
similarity among them in their actions and in their responses to events.
Strength of character emerges as a value by default among the many
3 1
Wylie Sypher declares, "Gide has no ‘characters* in this
novel but resolves behavior and motive into formal relationships.
Thus character Is simply the functions of behavior, the positions with
which it falls into adjustments with other characters.” Kenvon Review.
II (Spring, 1949), 296-297.
32
Elizabeth R. Jackson, "The Evanescent World of The
Faux-Monnaveurs.” Symposium. Summer 1962, p. 103. The analogy
between Gide’s method and the Baroque period is based upon a similar
concept or projection of reality: " ... complex to the point of con
fusion, evasive to the point of being at bottom intangible, in such a
constant state of flux that any single, isolated, static judgement is
necessarily false” (p. 111).
33
Harold March, p. 288.
34
Jean Hytier, p. 296.
3 6
W. Wolfgang Holdheim, p. 241.
85
3 6
weak figures. Indeed, only Laura, Olivier and Bernard possess the will
power to adapt to changing circumstances unlike the rest of the charac-
37
ters who are thwarted by early obstacles. The culmination of the
action in the suicide of Boris suggests a cause-and*effect relationship
binding each of the characters to that event, a relationship obscured by
3B
the tangential way in which the action unfolds.
The Plot and the Aesthetic Situation
The plot, as distinct from the aesthetic situation with which
we will deal shortly, contains two main lines of action: the activities
of the counterfeit gang and the suicide of Boris through the coercion of
his classmates. These two main lines emerge only in retrospect because
Gide employs no traditional plot emphasis or dramatic preparation. The
critic Jean Hytler devoted no less than eighteen pages to a summary of
36
Jean Hytler, p. 285.
37
Justin O'Brien, p. 195.
38
Germaine Brde, Gide. p. 246. Edmond Jaloux declares
that Gide was influenced by Meredith and Browning in his choice of plot
presentation:
“a joud de cet an subtil qui consiste & varler les dclairages
et 4 montrer un dvdnement central comme nous le voyons
dans la vie, c ’est & dire non pas entldrement, mats par
sections et sections de sections et 4 travers le regard de
ceux qui conte mplent comme nous” (“Andrd Gtde et le probid me
du roman.” Horn mage & Andrd Gide. p. 113).
86
the plot of Les Faux-Monnaveurs. and every reader of the work knows
well the reasons for such length. There is no hierarchy of importance
in the events. Normally such a hierarchy would be Implied by the
manner of presentation. Instead, each event in Les Faux-Monnaveurs
is surrounded by the paradoxical halo of its own random inevitability:
Vincent’s abandonment of the pregnant Laura and his delivery of Olivier
into the hands of Passavant, Edouard’s employment of the runaway Ber
nard after the theft of his notebooks, La PSrouse’s inability to end his
wretched life and his request to see his grandson Boris, Edouard’ s deci
sion to enroll Boris at the Azais- Vedel boarding school and the subse
quent employment of his grandfather at that establishm ent. There is,
however, a hierarchy of importance in the causation of events as opposed
to their manner of presentation, and this cause lies in the figure of Vin
cent M olinier. His seduction of Laura and her pregnancy are the reasons
for Edouard’ s hasty return to Parts where he drops the cloakroom ticket
39
discovered by Bernard. In addition, the action is partially unified by
40
tem poral lim itations: the entire work takes place within a few months.
Restriction of setting is even more narrow, for the action in Paris centers
around the Azais-Vedel boarding school. The resolutions of the action
39
Justin, O ’Brien, Portrait of Andrg Gide. p. 292.
40
Justin O’Brien, "G lde’ s Fictional Technique,” Yale French
Studies. No. 7 <1951), p. 85.
87
seem to be patterned after com ic and tragic endings: Olivier escapes
from Passavant and Bernard returns home, while Boris dies tragically by
41
an arranged suicide.
The action which culm inates in this suicide and in the
apprehension of the counterfeit gang obscures the internal struggle which
is the key to Les Faux-Monnaveurs: Edouard’s attem pt to write a novel.
The plot, that frame of incidents and events, unfolds so uniquely that
it distracts the reader from distinguishing the two levels of the work:
the external level, “ life” or the raw m aterial of the story itself with all
its many Vedels, Moliniers and Profit lend ieus, and the interior level of
the artist’s effort to shape that raw m aterial into coherent form. These
two levels pull in opposing directions: “ life” or the external story ram
bles relentlessly forward towards an unwinding or opening into the
unknown future, and the artistic effort tightens deliberately back towards
a closing, shaping and containing into a coherent past. This, then, is
the aesthetic situation “born of a conflict between two principal lines of
42
endeavor” : The conflict between life pushing towards chaos and the
artist pulling towards structure.
41
Germaine Br£e, Gide. p. 230.
42
Carl E. W. L . Dahlstrom, “The Analysis of Literary Situ
ation,” PMLA, LI (1936), 874. Dahlstrom’ s definition Is an elaboration
of M. Georges Poltl’s statem ent, “ Toute situation dramatlque natt d ’un
con flit entre deux directions princtpales d ’efforts” (873).
Themes
88
The themes of the external story introduce variations on the
idea of counterfeit as a falsifying or feigning. These variations thrive
in Les Faux-Monnaveurs on many levels of human significance from
existence itself to intersocial relations and individual faculties. They
exist in pairs, one side of the polarity always nourished by its opposite.
These themes which readily blur into one another are the natural and
unnatural, truth and ties, acting and sincerity.
The natural and unnatural polarity ranges in meaning over
several areas. The characters are concerned with appearing natural in
the sense of artless: Olivier and his friends lost their naturalness when
they saw each other in a large group (24), the servant Antoine wished
to appear natural when he told Monsieur Profitiendieu of Bernard’s
departure (35), the novelist Edouard speculated that women affect incon
sistency in order to appear without guile (473). In terms of the indi
vidual’s state of em otion, the natural or simple feeling is opposed by the
mixed or impure. Bernard rejoices that Profitiendieu is not his father
because he had never liked the pompous man and for this reason had
thought himself an unnatural son (37). Still a third meaning of the word
“natural” is used in connection with illegitim acy or the “natural child.”
Monsieur Mollnier holds the belief that the natural child Is innately law
less (334). Bernard, on the other hand, delights in his illegitim acy and
89
claim s that only the "natural” child is truly free of family restrictions
and prejudices (169). Here the interesting concept of legal marriage as
an extraneous ornament is clearly evident. This attitude towards mar
riage as an unnatural Institution permeates the other characters* experi
ence as well. Edouard, observing Monsieur and Madame La P£ rouse,
comments that married couples cause interminable suffering for each
other by the irritations of unpleasant personal habits (234). Old La
P£rouse confirms this negative outlook when he complains that any
stranger would understand him better than his life-long partner (259).
Pauline Molinier represents the woman’ s point of view as she perceives
that a wife appears most reasonable when in fact she is most resigned
(451), Edouard’s tacit agreement is implied in his notation that Madame
Vedel imagines she loves her husband because she sees him so infre
quently (344). The rebellious Vedel daughter Sarah will have no part
of domestic life because she believes that marriage is slavery (415).
The opposition of natural and unnatural is what most divides
the young from the old in Les Faux-Monnaveurs. The older people are
chained by custom and habit while their children are natural, spontane
ous, and free. The value placed upon naturalness in this work is une
quivocal, unlike the ambiguity of Paludes. Bernard writes to Olivier
from Switzerland of his exhilaration in the Alps and he describes his joy
at the absence of civilization with its stupidity and greed (251). Ma&me
Profltiendieu had returned to her dull husband because she could not
90
function in the free atmosphere of her illicit love affair, whereas the
indomitable young Sarah resolves to challenge every convention. Yet
Sarah's very determ ination drives her beyond the province of natural
desire as she forces herself to overcome modesty (415). Usually It is the
elders who corrupt the naturalness of their children by forcing their com
pliance with custom and routine. The older Molinier reveals a deplor
able ignorance of his sons’ activities when he claim s to know most about
them , and when asked why he allowed Olivier to be exposed to the very
real danger of Comte Passavant, he offers the deceiving maxim that
children w ill escape parental control at a certain age (326). Edouard,
aware of children's resistance to theories of child raising (279) questions
the effect of Sophroniska's relentless prying into littel Boris: “ 1 1 me
semble que la m aladie s’est slm piement r£fugi£e dans une region plus
profonde de l*etre, com m e pour £chapper au regard du m£decin; et que
c'est & present l ’am e meme qui est attelnte” (304).
Les Faux-Monnaveurs explores the idea of counterfeit in the
sphere of moral character and human intellect as well as in intersocial
relations. The word “ honor" reoccurs as a linking phrase and functions
as a leitm otif to reveal the generic them e of moral corruption. Soon
after his discovery that Monsieur Profitlendieu is not his father, Bernard
sarcastically refers to him as “Monsieur le juge" and repeats this title to
imply the dishonor of his wife's Infidelity (23). Later Bernard refers to
the concept of honor as a credit or source of distinction when he writes
91
of his intention to dishonor (dishonorer) his name: “Je signe du ridicule
nom qui est le votre, que je voudrais pouvoir vous rendre, et qu'il me
tarde de dishonorer'' (39). Honor as fame Is signified in the statement
“Jamais aucun de ses livres & lui n'a eu l’honneur de flgurer aux blblio-
thiques des gares" (103), while women's chastity is the meaning behind
Pauline's complaint that honorable women are always resigned (453).
The most satirical use of the word occurs in the title of the boys' organ
ization, Legion of Honor, which is a group established for sexual orgy.
The human intellectual faculties dealing with the commu
nication of ideas is the most significant falsification explored in Les
Faux-Monnaveurs. Here Gide exposes the characters' deliberate mis
representation of themselves to one another. The themes of truth and
lies, sincerity and acting are parallel yet distinct in degree of serious
ness, for an outright lie is more reprehensible than seeming other than
what one really is. The two magistrates Molinier and Profltiendieu lie
with the greatest ease of a ll. Molinier admits that he has always lied
to his wife about his infidelities (330). Profltiendieu lies several times
about Bernard's running away from home. He tells his wife that Ber
nard has merely gone to dine with a friend (42). To his children he
fabricates that Bernard has gone with an uncle and that his real mother
had died long ago. In fact, Bernard departed alone and Madame Prof I -
tlendieu herself conceived the child from a lover. Edouard, In keeping
with his role of commentator, records two lies he has observed: Georges
92
on the subject of the Legion d'Honneur (99) and old Azals on the facility
with which he stopped smoking (166). La P£rouse takes the position of
the victim of lies. He claim s that his wife taught his son to lie to him
(180) and that together they conspired against him during the child’s
upbringing. In his bitterness he also accuses God of duping him (109).
In these instances the sharp edges of absolute truth and falsehood become
shadowed within Gide’s complex moral vision. Boris and Laura also
disclose the antislmpllstic view of Les Faux-Monnaveurs. Boris implies
to Bronja that his fancies are no less false than her belief in angels, and
his comment underlines the meaning of La P&ouse’s complaints about
God: all beliefs can be considered “ lies’’ in the sense of their unreality
and unverlflability.
Laura serves as evidence for the blurred lines between act
ing, lying, and inhibited sincerity. In keeping with her indirect adul
tery, a deed which Gide presents In a light more favorable to her as the
victim of seduction, Laura indirectly deceives her father Azais about
her pregnancy by deleting the details of the paternity. The reader is
unable to assess how deliberate an omission this is, for we learn of it
third hand through Edouard’s recorded conversation with Azais (343).
Most of the characters act a part at one tim e or another.
This theme expands through four situations in which people misrepresent
themselves: the pretense of knowing less than what one perceives, the
the role-playing in which one consciously or unconsciously engages, the
93
quick control of a spontaneous Impulse, and the fabrication of emotion
to conceal its absence. The characters usually pretend ignorance to
avoid an unpleasant confrontation of some sort. The servant Antoine
pretends to notice nothing that might embarrass his employers (33),
Georges pretends to sleep but actually overhears Bernard and Olivier (54),
Edouard pretends to know nothing of Olivier's homosexuality (396),
Pauline pretends she knows nothing that her children do wrong in order to
avoid punishing them (397), Passavant pretends to illumine public
opinion when in fact he manipulates it (104) and he pretends to himself
that he desires whatever happens in order to avoid acknowledging his
defeats (457).
The characters role-play for the same reason that they pre
tend: it is easier than facing reality. Laura Is forced into the uncom
fortable part of the fallen woman and she Invents for herself the role of
elder sister to Bernard (263). Bernard accuses Monsieur Profltiendieu of
playing the role of his father in order to escape the scandal of admitting
to the world his wife’s infidelity (37).
The control of a spontaneous Impulse is undertaken for the
sake of propriety. Monsieur Profitiendteu wants to leave Monsieur
Molinier on the boulevard far behind him but he remains because the
latter exceeds him in rank and age (30). Edouard and Olivier hide their
feelings for fear of offending each other (116). Marguerite Profltiendieu
resents her husband’ s continual reminders of her adultery, but she cannot
94
reveal her resentment (46). In these instances a feeling is present which
remains unexpressed because of unseemliness, while in the opposite case
a feeling is absent but fabricated for the sake of decorum . Gontran
wants to grieve for his father but he feels nothing (74) and Edouard
observes that Douviers, Laura’s cuckolded husband, forces himself to
feel jealous because he thinks he ought to be (473). The fabrication of
an absent feeling has its most serious consequences when it Is generated
not for the sake of propriety but for the motive of outright deception.
Thus, Georges Molinier displays warm affection for Boris in order to
draw him into the suicide 9Cheme (535). With this exception the acting
in Les Faux-Monnaveurs is done out of weakness and Inadequacy. Only
Bernard understands the consequences of self-misrepresentation which
can interfere in the sense of identity: ’’Ton s’ occupe tant de paraltre,
qu’on finlt par ne plus savotr qul l'on est . . ,M (291).
The problem of identity, a not uncommon theme in modern
fiction, is explored in Les Faux-Monnaveurs in an uncommon way
which is consistent with the them atic polarities established in the work.
One may see the concern with acting as a comment on the projection of
self to other.
Les Faux-Monnaveurs probes the relationship of self and
other by describing the nature of the self, examining the moments when
self-awareness diminishes, and analyzing the peculiar association
between the novelist and the self. The self is a protean entity which
95
refuses any lasting labels. Edouard, speaking of his own self but
describing the self In general, ponders Its incessant variety and declares
that his morning and evening selves would not recognize each other were
he not there to Introduce them (108). The physical body alone seems
to unite the shifting personalities into one being although a “substratum”
emerges at tim es to provide the reassuring sense of continuity (108).
Tim e becomes the key to self-identity: a slow accum ulation of pasts
and presents becomes welded into an individual history. Simultaneously
a certain self-percept Ion is needed to establish a sense of identity. Yet
paradoxically, this self-perception gives rise to a split in point of view
which abolishes the fragile unity of self. Edouard describes the nature
of this division engendered by self-consciousness as a getting out of
oneself. He Is astonished that the person who watches him act can be
one and the same as the person who acts (111). In this sense, the self is
divided and can be said to contain Other within its own cognition.
Dostoevsky, about whom Glde wrote, Is the source for this concept of
the split ego. In the monologue of Notes from Underground the narrator
describes the division of ego produced by his intense and unpleasant self-
consciousness. In the novelist Edouard, however, Glde has allowed a
certain delight of the intellect In observing itself to penetrate the
Inherited layer of boredom and paralysis. Like Narcissus and his mlrror-
im age, the artistic concern that created Paludes takes some solace in the
existence for its own sake of this self-scrutiny. On another level this
96
delight may reflect the Impulse to protect the ego, an impulse balanced
43
by the desire for self-dissolution. Moreover, Gide fully understands
the suffering that can accompany the split ego, for he portrays in Armand
the exquisite torture of self-division:
Quoi que Je dlse ou fasse, toujours une partie de mot reste
en arrlere, qui regarde 1’autre se compromettre, qui
1’ observe, qui se fiche d’elle et la slffle, ou qui l ’applaudit.
Quand on est ainsi divis£, comment veux-tu qu’ on soit sin
cere? J ’ en viens & ne meme plus comprendre ce que peut
vouloir dire ce mot. Rien 5 faire & cela: si je suis trlste,
je me trouve grotesque et 9a me fait rire; quand je suis gal,
je fa is des plaisanteries tellem ent stupides que 9a me
donne envie de pleurer. (520)
Other negative aspects In the nature of the self can also be found in Les
Faux-Monnaveurs. Old La P6rouse complains bitterly of the same
disease which destroyed Andr6 Walter, the contrived purity and pride
which deceives and fosters within the self a monstrous, insidious cancer.
La P£rouse describes the process as the enslavement of pride which
occurred every tim e he believed he was freeing himself from self-
indulgence. He would congratulate himself, for example, upon refus
ing the advances of a whore (179). It is this aspect of self which ledcrlt-
44
ics to identify the devil in Les Faux-Monnaveurs as the principle of self.
43
Albert J. Guerard, Glde. p. 35n.
^Irvin Stock describes this devil as “the voracious, sly, inex
tinguishable self, whose 9ole motive in every situation Is the free gratification
of appetites, but who must adopt, to overcome a variety of fears and scruples,
an appropriate variety of disguises" (“A V lew of Les Faux-Monnaveurs."
Yale French Studies. No. 771951], p. 76). Albert J. Guerard analyzes
Gide s iorig moral struggle between self-renunciation and self-indulgence in
97
The self-other them e is am plified by those moments when
the self is transcended. Edouard speaks of those solemn occasions such
as funerals whose momentous significance produce a mystic enthusiasm
that liberates or depersonalizes the self (239). Bernard experiences the
transformation of self through love for another. His adoration of Laura
severs in his heart one of the bonds of self-concern (288) while his
affair with Sarah annihilates the self in physical exaltation and forget
fulness (434). Had the two experiences of spiritual and sexual love
occurred simultaneously, the self-transcendence advocated in Plato’s
Symposium would have been realized, the transformation of two into
one, when the soul, divided at birth, re-discovers its original m ate and
ceases to long for it. Glde had earlier interpreted this bereavem ent of
the self as the separation of the soul from God, as we saw in Andrg
W alter. The same discontent and longing may be seen in later writers
as the modem existentialist “angoisse." Earlier in Les Nourrltures
terrestres self-transcendence had taken on another meaning in the realm
of aesthetics. The Gidlan doctrine of Vitalism expressed by that work
demanded a total freedom from past and future and nourished a mystic
moment of its own which overcam e the split between self and other in
an Im m ediate present. This Gldean moment resembles James Joyce’s
his chapter on G tde’ s early works which he entitles “ The Spiritual Auto
biographies" (Andrg G lde. pp. 39-40).
epiphany. It is “the welding of the observer and the observed in a per-
. 45
feet instant of vital intensity. It goes beyond the epiphany in its
stress on sensation. Indeed, in Les Nourritures terrestres life itself may
46
be defined as “a fusion of subject and object in the sensation,” a
m arriage which requires both partners equally: the self to perceive the
world and give it meaning, the world to provide a framework for the
47
self so that "it may not founder in the lim itless.” In both Les Nourri
tures terrestres and Voyage d'Urten the narrative point of view is either
first-person singular or first-pewon plural: the m ain character refers to
him self as “je ” or “nous,” as an Individual or as a group m em ber. Les
Nourritures terrestres speaks to Nathanael, the perfect reader, in the
second person singular. With this exception, all the characters in Les
Nourritures terrestres are only parts of the “ nous.” They rem ain unde
veloped and serve primarily to show "je” self-perceiving in a group.
The unique relationship between the novelist and the self Is
the result of the creative Im agination. The novelist possesses the
capacity of depersonalization, of looking at the world from the frame of
someone else’s character. Edouard describes this faculty as the ability
to enter Into another person's emotions as if they were his own (148).
The novelist is also more likely to try to see him self as others see him,
45
Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel, p. 23.
46
99
and he becomes acutely aware of his self-im age. Thus Edouard con
siders the criticism s he has written about old Azais from the viewpoint of
Bernard and he realizes that the critique does greater dam age to himself
than to Azais (343). The most significant quality of the novelist is his
ability to overcome the division between subject and object: he can be
both him self and at the same tim e be “other” through the creation of his
characters. The novelist can be defined by the impulse to go beyond
48
the artificial boundaries of individuality and to manifest his complex
richness in writing.
Them atic Images
Les Faux-Monnaveurs incorporates several images found in
previous works by Glde and adds new Images and symbols of its own.
The polarity between reason and emotion established in Les Cahiers
d ’Andre Walter echoes in Mme. Sophronlska’s image to justify the
therapy she gives Boris:
Bien des choses Schappent & la raison, e t celui qui, pour
com prendre la vie, y applique seulement la raison, est
sem blable % quelqu’un qui pretendrait saislr une flam me
avec des pincettes. II n ’a plus devant tui qu’un morceau
de bols charbonneux, qui cesse aussitot de flam ber. (260)
The mirror and window Imagery so prominent in Paludes has diminished
in im portance. Although windows are mentioned six times in Les
Ibid. . p. 108.
100
Faux- Monnaveurs (21 f 55, 60, 68, 153, 236), they have resumed their
function as a feature of architecture. Mirrors figure insignificantly also.
They appear once by analogy to the sea in a quotation cited by Lady
Griffith (460), and again in a passage more reminiscent of Paludes*
connections between mirror, self-im age and personality when Passa-
vant’s need to be confronted by a flattering mirror is exposed (418). In
Les Faux-Monnaveurs the eye imagery of Paludes remains similar in
meaning. The restriction of viewpoint signified by the eyes of Paludes*
narrator is carried over to Madame Sophroniska, who does great damage
to Boris with her brutal psychiatric techniques. Another of her maxims
on curing nervous illness functions Ironically to reveal her own blindness
to the real needs of the child: “Je crois qu’un regard clair nettoie la
conscience comme un rayon de lumiere purl fie une eau infect£e” (258).
Another character representing the obstructed view on reality is the
saintly and deceived Vedel sister Rachel who, working to support her
foolish old father and relinquishing her dowry to pay her brother’s gam
bling debts, begins to lose her eyesight in a symbolic physical correspon
dence to her moral blindness (409).
The new them atic leitmotifs of money, dramatic acting,
and the devil all show correlative aspects of the falsifying them e.
Counterfeit money is the primary linking Image and as such Is used to
unify the other images by its various associations. It appears first in
connection with the demon Image as at the hour of dawn the devil
101
figures his accounts (85), and next In context with the fabricated feel
ings which comprise part of the them e of acting. Bernard states his
desire to ring true, to be worth what he seems. The image of ringing
true first appears to be an analogy between the self and a bell, but a
later image using the same verb places the first in the context of money
when Strouvilhou claim s that certain feelings aroused by conventional
writers “sonnent faux com m e des jetons, mais tls ont cours” (467). The
notion of ego as the false self is also suggested by the context of a
money image used by Bernard. He wishes to repay Edouard and consoles
himself with the thought “qu'il aura It monnay£ des richesses dont il
soupesalt en son coeur l ’abondance” (266). The position of Bernard as
the positive hero of Les Faux-Monnaveurs is ironically reinforced by a
money metaphor in a remark by Azais: “C'est avec les caracteres de
cette trempe qu’ on forge les meilleurs chr^tlens” (341). Edouard draws
an analogy between life and “the account"' when he deplores in the
m athem atical mind the absence of the lyrical spirit: “car, cecom pte-
1& ' comm e on dit, on est force d ’om ettre Dieu” (445). The important
connection between counterfeit money and counterfeit art is underlined
when Strouvilhou warns that if he should accept the position of editor on
Passavant’s review “ce sera pour y crever des outres, pour y d€mon£tlser
tous les beaux sentiments, et ces billets & ordre: les mots'" (467).
The them e of falsification as misrepresentation is illumined
at various points by the dram atic acting leitm otif. Gide’s fascination
102
with the effects of light playing on shadow, a visual kaleidoscope paral
leling his complex moral vision, is also echoed in the explicit detail of
the shadow cast by the street lamp like footlights at a theater (178).
The acting simile appears again in connection with La Plrouse, whose
gestures resemble those of an actor (354) and who claims that life is but
a puppet show, a play to amuse God (359). One of Edouard’s metaphor
ical maxims declares, "Chacun de nous assume un drame & sa taille, et
revolt son contingent de tragique” (445). Passavant, the consummate
fabricator, pauses In his speech like an actor who must prove that he has
captured the attention of his audience (226).
49
The demon image reappears nine times, and in each case
it correlates the theme of acting and the theme of self by exposing self-
deception. The devil watches in amusement as Vincent enters Lady
Griffith’s apartment for the first liaison which will eventually lead to his
destruction (87). He urges Bernard to attent the political meeting where
his self-doubt will be tested (493), and he prompts old Azais to consider
only his generosity to Boris, and to overlook the disadvantages of his
school where the boy will die (317). La Pgrouse hears the voice of the
devil whenever he listens for God (549). Yet it is Armand who describes
the devil’s trick of pulling taut the cord of temptation (411). It is also
Armand who receives the letter which tells of a man who went insane,
* 0 0 . pp. 85, 87, 202, 209, 317, 411, 488 , 493, 527.
103
a m an who believed him self to be the devil, a m an whom the reader
recognizes as V incent (527).
The devil finds a p arallel in the angel who struggles with
Bernard, after he has shown Bernard the d e v il’s masks of patriotism and
self-satisfaction. During the night of w restling, neither Bernard nor the
angel em erges as victor. The next m orning, Bernard asks Edouard
w hether he should live according to rules m ade by others or w hether he
should set his own rules (327). Edouard advises him to be true to him
self: . . d ’avoir pour but le d€veloppem ent de sol . . . II est bon de
suivre sa pente, pourvu que ce soit en m ontant” (495). Thus the angel
of self-searching and integrity is opposed to the devil o f easy solutions
and self-d ecep tio n . C learly the author of Les Faux-M onnaveurs has
progressed far beyond the sim plistic tension and dichotom y th at Andr€
W alter perceived betw een th e a n g e l- 9oul and dem on-body.
The rem aining im ages in the work deal with m usic, with
liquid, or with anim als, rem iniscent of favorite G idean details from
AndrS W alter’s C ahlers and from Paludes. A m usical analogy captures
the incongruity betw een M ollnier’s feelings and his facial expression:
“une contre-basse s’essayant & des effets d ’alto ” (332). Several curious
figures of speech refer to th e pouring of liquid: Edouard wants to pour
reflections on M olinier as he m ight pour oil on an engine (330), the
speaker a t the Argonauts’ dinner ladles out portions of rhetoric (416), and
Passavant pours poisonous perfidy on Edouard (458). Various anim als
104
pursue the analogy of man, object and beast: the maid turns like a ser
pent (344), the chair broke and folded its legs like a bird (191), La
P£rouse in his classroom resembled a stag among vicious hounds (499).
The many associations between Passavant and fish imagery
suggest the ironic allegory of the theories on marine biology expressed
in the book. At first, in conversation Passavant is likened to an angler
who pretends to drop his subject or bait (225), then his tendency to
plagiarize ideas is described as netting the unprinted fish (375). Fish
are negative images in Les Faux-Monnaveurs. and their meaning
accrues gradually. Lillian tells Passavant about the preying fish in
pools of varying saltation (78), and Vincent describes the blind fish
whose eyes are sensitive only to their own phosphorescent light (223).
Passavant steals this idea and presents it as his own to Olivier who
writes about it to Bernard and adds Passavant's interpretation: the fish
can do without the light of the sun, or grace and revelation (312).
Clearly Passavant himself is a blind fish sensitive only to his self
generated light, the private light of his own ego.
At many points in the book this marine imagery is rein
forced. Lillian extends the surface level of her story of the shipwreck
and the drowning passengers1 fingers being chopped off as they attempt
to enter a crowded lifeboat. She speculates that one must chop off
delicate feelings before they tip over the heart (102). This exact image
Is used later by Vincent (212). If the boat represents the heart, and
105
particularly the isolated heart or self, the sea is an image of life. Ber
nard wonders which path on the ocean of life will be his (484).
Form as Theme
While the writers Andr6 Walter and the narrator of Paludes
concerned themselves with art, Illusion, and reality, they did not devote
analysis to the specific problem of reality and illusion. Les Faux-
Monnaveurs goes beyond these works in its treatm ent of illusion and
reality per se, as distinct from the theme of falsification which we have
50
already examined.
Gide's earlier preoccupations with dream and minor as
embodiments of the transition between the real and unreal have faded
to insignificance in Les Faux-Monnaveurs. Only two dreams are men
tioned, and each deals with the dream activity of the mind while the
body sleeps: Bernard shakes off his dream and returns to the real world
on his first morning away from home (89), and La P£rouse complains
50
Benjamin Cremieux writes,
“On voit, dans cette navette entre le rdel et ses interpretations,
entre Fart et la vie, entre les faits et la conscience qu’on enprend
qu’elles interpretations peuvent se superposer, que lies Influences,
quelles interferences peuvent jouer entre tous ces plans qui s’eta-
gent, entre les angles de vision qui se coupent. A 1’affirmation une
et arbitraire de Fetre de ses personnages, Andre Glde prefftre une
profusion de ‘paraltres.’ C’est 1ft sans doute la nouveaute essenti-
elle de son roman, celle qui ouvre le plus de routes et de possibil-
ite s fr Andre Glde et l ’art du roman,” Horn mage ’a Andre Glde.
p. 94).
106
of insomnia and the awareness of being asleep that keeps him on the
verge of waking (501). An echo of the indictment against Paludes' nar
rator, for submerging reality and the humanity of his friends beneath
their artistic potential which he compulsively records in his notes, may
be heard in Edouard's description of his Journal. Edouard labels the
Journal his pocket minor because no event becomes real for him unless
he sees it reflected there (231),
Les Faux-Monnaveurs distinguishes between aspects of real
ity that range in spectrum from the least to the most tangible: belief,
feeling, perception, and event. At the remote extreme from factual
events subject to proof lie religious beliefs. Edouard suggests that devout
faith consumes the need, the desire for, and even the sense of reality
(160). Bernard ponders the fact that he doubts the reality of everything,
but not the reality of his doubt. Only one meter closer than belief to
m eterial reality Is emotional feeling. Edouard maintains that In the
emotional realm the real is indistinguishable from the imaginary (111).
The perception of reality achieved by the senses is represented when
Rachel becomes physically blind and again when La Pdrouse doubts the
veracity of his wife's vision: “quelle ombre monstrueuse la r£alit£ pro-
jetait sur la parol de cet £trolt cervlau” (233). He claims that Madame
La P£rouse lacks the proper apparatus to correct the reverse image
received by the retina.
107
The counterfeit coins and Boris’ suicide are carefully expli
cated in the context of illusion and reality. Gide suggests the regressive
portals of reality through Edouard’s speech:
im aginez une piece d ’ or de dix francs qui soit fausse. Elle
ne vaut en r£altt£ que deux sous. Elle vaudra dix francs
tant qu’ on ne reconnaltra pas qu’elle est fausse. (277)
Laura and Madame Sophroniska must imagine the tangible gold piece
because Edouard cannot place it in their hands. Even if the coin were
tangible, imagination would still play its pan by bestowing upon it a
non-existent value, Only when everyone recognized the coin as false
and agreed to give it no value would it assume its true worthlessness. It
is the unqualified agreem ent of at least two or three viewers of an object
or event that establishes the verdict of its reality. The crudeness of this
agreem ent offends Edouard. He arrogantly refuses to use the event of
Boris’s suicide In his novel because he did not himself expect It to
happen:
. . . je n ’alm e pas les "faits-divers.” Ils ont quelque chose
de p£remptoire, d ’tndSntable, de brutal, ddutrageusement
r£el . . . Je consens que la r£alit£ vienne & l ’appui de ma
pens£e, com me une preuve; mais non point qu’ell la pre
cede. II me d^ pi alt d ’etre surpris. Le suicide de Boris
m 'apparalt comm e une indecence, car je ne m ’y atten-
dais pas. (546)
Form as Theme: Prose Techniques
108
The prose techniques exercised In Les Faux-Monnaveurs
find precedent In earlier works by Glde. We see the use of successive
Interpreters In Jerome's narrative and Allssa’ s diary In La Porte £trolte.
a technique of narration that requires the reader to reconstruct his own
51
view of the events that have been reported. Contrapuntal composition
52
and multiple plots were tried In Les Caves du Vatican. From Les
Nourritures terrestres comes the minor interior form serving as a con
centrated statement of theme much as a couplet distills the wisdom of
a Shakespearean sonnet. Examples of these minor Interior forms In Les
Nourritures terrestres are the songs which Intersperse that work. In Les
Faux-Monnaveurs the interior forms are Edouard's journal and novel.
The book within the book concept originated, as the reader will recall,
In Glde’s first publication, Les Cahiers d'Andr£ W alter.
Another instance of an earlier prose technique Is the struc
ture of the open ending, manifested in Les Faux-Monnaveurs by
Edouard's curiosity to know Caloub and his Implication that the story
will continue. The open ending finds a prelude In the innovative end
ings of Gide's earlier fictions, the epilogues of Voyage d'Urlen and
51
Justin O'Brien, "Gide's Fictional Technique,” Yale French
Studies. VII (1951), 86-87.
52
Ibid.. p. 89.
109
Prometheus, the envois to Les Nourritures terrestres and Paludes. All
deal In some way with repudiating the text, with indicating that the art
work is false because It artificially fixes lim its and endings. Still
another prose technique utilized previously by Glde is the ridicule of
the narrator's pompous artistic theories, an effect achieved by surround
ing these theories with a deflating context. As Paludes' narrator was
subtly mocked by his friends whenever he began to declaim upon his
great enterprise in fiction, so Laura and Bernard take Edouard's project
less than seriously: “ Et puis je vois tres bien ce qui va arrlver, s’£cria
Laura: ‘ dans ce romancler, vous ne pourrez falre autrement que de
vous p eindre"’ (271),
H ie discussions of art that ironically enlivened Paludes with
a m iniature summary of aesthetics are modified in Les Faux-Monnaveuis
to the point where even the minor characters venture to speak their
opinions on art. They demand specific qualities in literature, describe
work in progress, or deal with the nature and condition of being an
artist. The gentle spoof of literary seriousness is evident in the m ien of
gargoyle's glee with which Gide narrates contradictory and vehement
opinions. Demands are variously made for more visual detail in fiction
(24) or on the contrary for as little physical description as possible (112).
Passavant declares that a great school of art brings “avec un nouveau
style, une nouvelle £thique, un nouveau cahier des changes, de nou-
velles tables, une nouvelle fagon de voir, de comprendre l'anpur, et de
no
se comporter dans la vie” (206). Edouard debates with La P6rouse as
to whether dramatic art must portray the passions (241). Madame
Sophroniska maintains that there is more truth in poetry than in novels
(261), while Strouvilhou argues that literature passes off false feelings
for real (467). The works either in progress or planned include Lucien’s
story of a part and what happens there each hour (27), an idea which
later finds realization in Le Square by M. Duras, and Passavant’s m ani
festo for the New Literary Review (67). Armand's poem “ Le Vase noc
turne,” through which Gide attacks Andrl Breton, is the epitome of the
satire on literary seriousness, as are the goals for his review which he
describes to Olivier:
Ce qui est stuplde, c ’est 1'admiration qu'on lui voue. C'est
1'habitude qu'on a de ne parler de ce qu'on appele “ les
chefe-d'oeuvre' que chapeau bas. Le Fer a repasser (ce
sera d'allleurs le tltre g£nerdl de la revue) a pour but de
rendre bouffon cette r£v£rence, de dlscr&liter. (521)
Accounts of the writer's temperament and discipline furnish the acces
sories to the caricature. When Lillian has related the pathetic details
of Laura's temporary madness on discovering her illicit pregnancy,
Passavant punctures her moving story with the observation, “Je ne sals
pas comment vous diriez cela en russe ou en anglais, mais je vous cer-
tifie qu'en fran9ais, c'est trfes bien” (83). In a different vein Bernard
comments on the poet's lack of self-consciousness (93) and Vincent
describes the novelist's need to study animals and plants in order to
I l l
understand humans (219). Oliver claim s that, as opposed to the scholar,
the artist who seeks only the surface appearance of things can uncover
their secret depths (375). The conflict between Intense participation in
life and the detached analysis required for the purpose of writing about
it figures in the comments of Bernard and Edouard. Bernard does not
consider himself a writer because he believes that he does not know
enough about human nature. In addition he senses the conflict between
writing and living: “II me semble parfols qu’ dcrire empeche de vivre,
et qu’on peut s’exprimer mieux par des acres que par des mots” (386).
Edouard, on the other hand, seems to paraphrase Wordsworth's well-
known doctrine of emotional inspiration followed by analysis in tranquil
recollection^ “ . . . je crois volontiers qu’ on n ’est artiste qu’ft condition
de dominer l’£tat lyrique; mais 1 1 importe, pour le dominer, de l ’avolr
Sprouvd d ’abord” (446),
The innovations in prose technique displayed in Les Faux-
Monnaveurs are concentrated in narrative structure and aesthetic situa
tion. Albert Guerard classifies three separate narrators whose distinct
voices create a substructure of interior authors. The first, the alleged
author of Les Faux-Monnaveurs. speaks directly to the reader about his
characters in chapter seven of book two. Unlike the untitled French
original, the English translation by Dorothy Bussy entitles this chapter
112
53
“ The Author Reviews his Characters.” This voice is “the hypothetical
author who wonders where the story will take him, who is mildly annoyed
by Edouard, and has been disappointed by Bernard, Lady Griffith, and
54
Vincent.” Second, the om niscient narrator or “roving conductor* 1
guides the reader through chapter I to VII and interm ittently from then
on.
The roving conductor is a cam era with a personality and a
man reading stage-direct ions aloud: conducting, observing
and listening to a life that unrolls in an eternal present. He
is telling the story, as the events occur before him , not
writing a book. Until late in the novel . . . he speaks In
the present tense .5 5
Edouard and his diary provide the third voice. While his “ intelligent
56
brooding on the action” allows much physical description and analysis
of m otivation, yet it lacks the wit of the roving conductor. Guerard
asserts that the historic im portance of these subauthors is not so much
their experim ental use as it is the contribution to anti-realism . Credit
for this anti-realism is given more to the wit of the roving conductor
than to the speaking voice of chapter VII, “The Author Reviews his
57
Characters,”
Wolfgang Holdhelm*s analysis of the authorial Intrusions and
voices in Les Faux-Monnaveurs concludes that all are various levels of
53
First edition September, 1927, published by Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., second and third editions In 1951 and 1955.
54
Albert J. Guerard, Andr£ Glde. p. 167.
55Ibid.. p. 169. 56Ib id .. p. 173. S 7Ib id .. p. 165.
113
5 6
“the incarnations of the creative consciousness.” Edouard represents
lim itation as a novelist because he is insufficiently open to life. Yet
while Edouard is concrete and easily identified, the "je” of the work Is
elusive. He is the “transcendent author who moves into the work — a
59
further step on the gradated road to the detached literary consciousness.
Holdheim sees these two voices as but part of a pyramid:
a line of perspectives that runs from subjectivity to objectivity,
from limitation to control, from the relative to the absolute.
At the top of this pyramid . . . there is also the objective and
Impersonal narration of the omniscient Novelist, the dininely
distant A uthor.^
Holdheim concludes that Edouard is a universalized Glde, Glde as the
modern artist and intellectual, presented in such a way that the distance
between author and character is the important aspect and not their
mutual identification:
Glde removes himself from Edouard (to whom he has ascribed
his most radical theoretical conclusions in a falsely relativized
form) to keep open the “concrete” possibility of the novel is
the face of its demonstrated impossibility.6 1
Theory and Practice of the Novel: A Study of Andrg Gide
(Geneve: 1968), p. 247.
5 9 6 0
Ibid.. p. 249. Ibid.
6 1
Ibid. . p. 252. Ralph Freedman, on the other hand,
views Les Faux-Monnaveurs as a variation of the Lyrical Novel which
employs a pattern of soliloquists.
“ In Les Faux-Monnaveurs. Gide created a design of image-
scenes viewed by various figures, including the author. The
novel’ s form is made up of a pattern of these sequences
114
Besides the Innovative authorial substructures within Les
Faux-Monnaveurs Itself, the external addition of Gide’s own lournal des
Faux-Monnaveurs to the fiction triples the magnification which was
doubled by the narrator of Paludes. The latter, as the reader will recall
included notes on the narrator’ s book as well as segments of It as they
were being conceived in his mind. In Les Faux-Monnaveurs we have an
interior diary kept by Edouard on the progress of his book and an addi
tional Journal written by Gide on his own progress. The comparison
between the two Journals reveals many similar passages in addition to
striking differences and omissions as Gide modified his ideas for EdouarTs
use. Both Gide and his novelist Edouard ponder the relationship between
fictional characters and ideas. Edouard declares, "Les idles . . les
idles, je vous l ’avoue, m ’intlressent plus que les hommes; m ’lntlres-
sent par-dessus tout” (12:244). Gide, however, outlines the necessity for
the writer to express the idea only through the character and not at the
expense of characterization: “ Ne jamais exposer d ’idles qu’en fonctlon
des tem plram ents et des caractlres” (13:7). He prescribes the change
needed in Edouard’s attitude: "Persuade-toi que les opinions n’ existent
pas en dehors des Individus” (13:7).
which acts both through the cumulative motion of the lyrical
process’ and through several juxtaposed levels of awareness.”
The Lyrical Novel (Princeton: 1963), p. 15. In his lengthy
definition of the lyrical novel he mentions "that identity of narrator and
subject which was to become a hallmark of lyrical design,” but he does
not analyze the interior book which is the concrete manifestation of this
identification (p. 12).
115
Both Gide and Edouard express the desire to incorporate
within their works all of their experience and wisdom. Whereas Gide
writes of this desire in his Journal. “Tout, ce que je vois, tout que j'ap*
prends, tout ce qui m 'advient depuls quelques mols, je voudrais le fa Ire
entrer dans ce roman, et m ’en servlr pour Tenrichissement de sa touffe”
(13:18), he has Edouard discuss in conversation with Madame Sophro-
niska the same desire:
Comprenez-moi: je voudrais tout y faire entrer, dans ce
roman. Pas de coup de ciseaux pour arreter, icl plutot que
IS, sa substance. Depuis plus d'un an que j'y travaille, 1 1
ne m 'arrive rien que je n'y veuille faire entrer: ce que je
vois, ce que je sals, tout ce que m ’apprend la vie des autre
et la mienne . . . (12:271)
Gide also has Edouard m imic his observation about the novelist's ability
to understand other viewpoints. Edouard's journal entry of 18 October
reads,
Mon coeur ne bat que par sympathie; je ne vis que par autrui;
par procuration, pourrals^je dire, par £pousailles, et ne me
sens jam ais vlvre plus intens£ment que quand je m '£chappe &
m ol-m em e pour deventr n'im porte qui. (12: 110)
The first words are almost exact copies of Glde's own Journal of 15
novembre 1923: “ De meme dans la vie, c'est la pens£e, l'& notion
d'autrui qui m 'hablte; mon coeur ne bat que par sympathie" (13:49).
However, Gide adds more self-analysis and continues, “ C 'est ce qui me
rend toute discussion si difficile. J'abandonne aussltot mon point devue.
Je me quitte etalnsi-soit il” (13:49). The same pattern prevails in the
116
mutual passages on the decrystalltzation of love where Gide Indirectly
alludes to Stendhal’ s theory of love. Here as well, Gide’s analysis
goes beyond that which he allows Edouard (12:112 and 13:20). The
act of theft which Gide observed in a bookshop reverses this pattern, for
It is rewritten by Edouard with much embellishment. Whereas Gide
calls the thief simply “un gosse” (13:22), Edouard adds “ un jeune
lyc£en, de trelze ans environ” (12:130). Edouard also adds details of
the chair on which the shopkeeper sat, and he imagines the pathetic
family history of the frayed coat worn by the child. In both accounts
the child becomes aware of being watched only after he has slipped the
book into his pocket, and upon this realization he pantomimes the dis
covery that his wallet does not contain enough money for its purchase.
Edouard includes more details about the boy’s actions as he returns the
book to the shelf, and he incorporates the image of cat-and-m ouse used
by Gide to describe the game played by thief and spectator. Both
accounts end with the craftsman’ s comment that for increased fictional
interest the incident should be presented from the viewpoint of the
urchin, but unlike Gide, Edouard had initially stated, “Je note toutcela
par discipline, et pr6cis€ment parce que cela m ’ennuie de la noter”
(12:131).
62
This in turn suggests the Idealogues who influenced Sten
dhal. They were a group of mechanist psychologists who derived from
Condillac in their concepts. They influenced Benjamin Constant as well
as Stendhal in their belief that ideas em anate from sensations.
117
An exam ple of the two processes at work as Gide transforms
his ideas for Edouard, the processes of expansion and contraction, may
be seen simultaneously in the manner in which Edouard expresses G ide’s
theories on the early tw entieth-century novel. Gide states simply, “ le
roman s’est toujours, et dans tous les pays, jusqu’& present cramponn£
& la r£altt£” (13:38). Edouard expands the observation as follows:
. . . de tous les genres litter a ires . . . le roman reste le plus
libre, le plus lawless . . . est-ce peut-etre pour cela, par
peur de cette liberty meme (car les artistes qui soupirent le
plus apres la liberty, sont les plus affol£s souvent, d£s
qu’ils l ’obtiennent) que le roman, toujours, s’est si crain-
tivem ent cramponn€ & la r€alit£? (12:268)
Another restatem ent through Edouard shows an emphasis upon different
aspects of literary history. Gide declares, “La trag&lle et la com £die,
au XVII6 si&cle, sont parvenues & une grand puretd (la puretd, en art
com m e partout, c ’est cela qui im porte)— et du reste, k peu prSs tousles
genres, grands ou petits, fables, caracteres, sermons, mdmolres, le t-
tres” (13:40). The causes of this purity Identified in G ide’s Journal are
analyzed by Edouard:
U n ’a jam ais connu, le roman, cette “ formidable Erosion des
contours” dont parle Nietzche, et ce volontaire £cartem ent
de la vie, qui permirent le style, aux oeuvres des dram a
turges grecs par exem ple, ou aux tragedies du XVlle sl&cle
franca is . . . cela n ’est humain que profond€ment; cela ne
se pique pas de le paraltre, ou du moins de paraltre r£el.
(12:269)
118
Gide also has Edouard reflect his opinion of Balzac, but in a magnified
or exaggerated version. Gide questions,
Mals n 'est-il pas rem aiquable que Balzac, s'il est peut-etre
le plus grand de nos romanciers, est surement celui qui m ela
au roman et y annexa, et y am algam a, le plus d ’£l£ments
h£t£rog§nes, et proprement inassimllables par le roman, de
sorte que la masse d'un de ses livres restes S la fois une des
choses les plus puissantes, mals bien aussi les plus troubles,
les plus im parfaites et chargees de scories, de toute notre
lite ra tu re . (13:41)
Edouard increases the vehemence of G ide’s theoretical aversion to this
kind of realism:
Parce que Balzac dtalt un gdnie, et parce que tout g€nie
semble apporter k son art une solution definitive et exclu
sive, Eon a d^crdtd que le propre du roman dtalt de faire
“concurrence h l'e ta t civ il.” Balzac avait ddlfie son
oeuvre; mais 1 1 n ’avait jam ais prdtendu codilier le roman;
son article sur Stendhal le montre bien. Concurrence &
l'£ tat civil! Comme s'il n'y avait pas deja suffisament de
paltoquets sur la terre! (12:269)
Gide also Injects the opinions he expressed In the journal des
Faux-Monnaveurs into the body of the work through a vein other than
that of Edouard. He has Passavant state the weakness of the symbolist
school, “c ’est de n’a voir apport£ qu’une esth£tique” (12:206) and thereby
echo his own criticism in the journal (13:37-38). Vincent's change in
attitude towards his gambling is reproduced almost verbatim from Gide’s
Journal (13:13). However, In the book Gide has the omniscient author
expand the details within the list of V incent's motivations (12:109).
119
The difference between Edouard’s and Gide’s Journal Is
one of intent and function. Gide clearly states his intent to copy his
own Journal in Les Faux-Monnaveurs:
Je ne dois noter lei que les remarques d ’ordre ££n£ral sur
l'&ablissement, la composition et la raison d ’etre du roman.
II faut que ce carnet devlenne en quelque sorte “le cahier
d ’E d o u a r d (13:20).
In the second notebook he outlines the cause and function of this
reproduction:
Somme toute, ce cahier ou j ’ €cris l ’histolre meme du livre,
je le vois vers£ tout entier dans le llvre, en formant l*int£ret
principal, pour la majeure irritation du lecteur. (13:31-32)
Edouard’s decision to keep a notebook is not in order to irritate the
reader but rather for the sake of its own interest:
. . . ce carnet contient la critique continue de mon rom an; ou
mieux: du roman en general. Songez a I’int&et qu’aurait
pour nous un semblable carnet tenu par Dickens, ou Blazac; si
nous avions le journal de 1’Education Sentimentale. ou de
Freres Karamasovl l ’histoire de l ’oeuvre, de sa gestation!
Mas ce serait passionnant . . . plus lnt£ressant que l ’ oeuvre
elle-m em e. (12:273-274)
The significance of the two journals of Edouard and Gide
consists in their implications concerning form as them e. In both cases
they produce the phenomenon of the self-contemplating novel, the novel
concerned with its own essence and actively manifesting this concern.
Of course, it is the human and fictional novelist whose creative impulses
and inhibitions are recorded, but the effect bestows upon the art work an
120
almost living autonomy. The work of art becomes Its own subject, as
It must whenever form becomes them e. In order for this to occur, a
certain distance is created between the work of art and the instrument
of contemplation. In Les Faux-Monnaveurs this distance is emphasized
by the presence of such instrument both within and outside the novel:
the journals of Edouard and Gide. Moreover, it is this distance which
endows the work with its almost living autonomy because it resembles
63
the human structure of self-consciousness.
The meaning of the two journals and their implicit com
mentary upon form as theme will be clarified after certain important
distinctions have been made between them . Edouard’s journal contem
plates his book with less generative Influence than does Gide’s. At first
glance, both Journals seem self-conscious of the same creative nuclei.
Gide states candidly his awareness of the dual hinges on the foundation
of his work:
Un’y a pas, 4 proprement parler, un seul centre 4 ce llvre,
autour de quol viennent converger mes efforts; c ’est autour
de deux foyers, 4 la m ant ere des ellipses, que ces efforts se
polarisent. D’une part, l ’ ^v^nement, le fait, la donn£e
exterieure; d ’autre part, 1’effort meme du romancler pour
faire un livre avec cela. Et c ’est 14 le suject principal,
le centre nouveau qui d€saxe le r£cit et entralne vers
l ’im aglnatif. (13:31)
Edouard al90 divides his creative interest: "Ce que je veux, c ’est pre
senter d ’une part la r£alit£, presenter d ’a u tr e part cet effort pour la
Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel, p. 75.
121
styllser, dont je vous par la is” (12:271). Both human and fictional jour
nals seem to declare a quest for the universal novel. Gide’s journal
entry of 1 November 1922 reads, “Purger le roman de tous les £l£ments
que n'appartlennent pas sp& iflquem ent au rom an. On n'obtlent rlen de
bon par le m elange” (13:40). He mentions La Princesse de Clfeves and
cautions himself against exaggerating its qualities beyond those of tact
and taste, but then adds, “ Et ce pur roman, nul ne l ’a non plus donne
plus tard” (13:41). Taking his cue from Gide, Edouard formulates a
theory of the pure novel with great sincerity and elaboration (12:113).
It is this theory which makes Gide one of the undeniable and outstanding
precursors of the anti-novel of the 1960's, for he has Edouard postulate
a stripping away of all realistic dialogue, character description and out
ward event, elem ents which were later discarded by Sarraute, Robbe-
Grillet and Claudel.
Despite the basic sim ilarities between the journals of Gide
and of Edouard, the essential difference lies in Gide's observation that
his fictional novelist Edouard will fall In his quest for the pure novel
(13:41). He proposes that Edouard's primary inspiration in the endeavor
to write a pure novel Is the conviction that It had never been done
before (13:42). Gide identifies the m ajor obstacle to Edouard's success
in com pleting the novel as Edouard's narcissism: “ U comprend bien des
choses, mals se poursult lul-m em e sans cesse; & travers tout, & travers
tout. Le veritable d£vouement lui est a peu pr£s impossible” (13:42).
122
Edouard seems almost aware of this weakness. He declares that his jour
nal takes precedence over his novel:
Oul, si je ne parvlens pas & l '6crlre, ce llvre, c'est que
l*histoire du livre m ’aura plus int£ress£ que le livre lui
m em e, qu'llle aura prts sa place; et se sera tant m ieux.
(274)
Edouard's failure to com plete the novel is a result of his consuming
64
interest in the way he creates it. It is a manifestation of the inhibition
of will caused by an infinite regress of consciousness, the acute self-
awareness that parasitically feeds back upon its own energy rather than
expressing that energy in the act of writing.
Form as Theme: The Book of Life
Gide's deliberate identification of narcissism in Edouard
recalls his earlier concern with the narcissism of the narrator of Faludes.
a concern he expressed structurally through the mirror metaphor. It
dates even farther back In Gide's canon to Le T raits de Narclsse. pub
lished in 1891. In this aesthetic treatise set in Paradise, Adam breaks a
branch from the tree Ygdrasil. Im m ediately the timeless harmony of
64
Professor Emeritus jean Hytier accuses Gide of the same
narcissism. Hytier states that a consuming critical curiosity lies at the
ba9e of the need to reduplicate the object, that this urge to duplicate
disguises an Impotence of the Imagination, and that like Narcissus it
carries within its interior the figure of itself, Its own desire (Andrg Gide.
p. 290).
123
Paradise disintegrates. Glde's essay proposes that the poet and artist
must manifest whatever he finds within him self. This theory was based
upon a quasi-Platonic system of Ideal forms. The narcissistic elem ent
enters when Adam, through boredom, suddenly prefers his own isolated
indlflcualism to the harmonious unity of which he has been m erely a
66
part. It Is this preference which leads to the breaking of the branch.
In addition, Le Trait€ du Narclsse also presents an impor
tant concept leading to the dual structure of Les Faux-M onnaveurs. This
is the concept of the Sacred Book. Its essence as a receptacle of all
wisdom is suggested when it Is introduced in close connection with the
tree Ygdrasil:
Dans 1’ombre, contre son tronc, s’appuyait le llvre du Myst&re—
ou se lisait la v£rit£ qu’il faut connaltre. Et le vent, soufflant
dans les feuilles de 1'arbre, en £pelait, le long du jour, les
hi€roglyphes n£cessalres. (1 :211)
When Adam breaks the branch, the tree shakes and quivers in the wind
that suddenly tears through its limbs. Its leaves are lifted by the wind
“ vers l ’inconnue d ’un ciel nocturne et vers de hasardeux paysages, ou
fult l ’£parillem ent aussi des pages arrach6es au grand livre sacr£ qui
s’effeullle . . . le temps est ne” (1:212). The Book is scattered as well,
but the memory of Paradise remains with m an. It is especially the poets
who remember the Book,
66
Holdheim, Theory and Practice of the Novel, p. 36.
124
poetes, qui recuelllerent pie use me nt les feulllets dfichir^s
du Livre lmm£moreal ou se lisait la v£rit£ qu’il faut
connaltre. (1,213)
The Sacred Book, the book of wisdom, Is a self-contained
unity, “ou se lisait la v£rlt£ qu’il faut connaltre,” and as such it be
speaks the Platonic principle of perfect form, wherein the lim its or
boundaries of form are self-apportioned in their sublime harmony. The
opposite of form in the sense of exquisitely self-ordered unity is chaos.
The eternal conflict between chaos and form is one and the same with
the conflict between life and art as the jungle of growth threatens to
devour in its midst any transitory citadel of finished beauty. The reader
will recall the two levels of Les Faux-Monnaveurs: "life” or the raw
m aterial of the story lt9elf, and the interior level of Edouard’s effort to
shape that raw m aterial into a work of art. The aesthetic situation is
the conflict between life pushing towards chaos and the artist pulling
towards structure. The concept of the Sacred Book is the source of this
aesthetic situation.
Although G ide’s own canon provides the 9ource m aterial for
66
the Sacred Book, various aspects of Its literary history are suggested by
66
Vinlo Rossi traces the beginning of G ide’s interest in the
abyme technique to the summer of 1893, “ He borrowed the term [en
abyme] from heraldry, where it signifies placing a figure or a reproduc
tion of the coat of arms it9elf at the center of the field” (Andrf Gide:
The Evolution of an Aesthetic f New Tersev: 1967], p. 129).
125
Les Faux-Monnaveurs. Three distinct aspects of the Sacred Book
emerge from the Bible. Foremost is the concept of the Book of Justice,
the book as a set of standards or rules. Moses receives two tables of
testimony to his communion with God, "tables of stone, written with
the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). The symbolic Book of Justice thus
becomes concrete in the Ten Commandments. The significant Book of
Life metaphor is the second tradition appearing in the Bible. Moses
asks God to forgive his people for worshipping the idolatrous Calf, add
ing “ if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy ux>k which thou hast
written” (Ex. 32:32). This is the Book of Life written by God, and It
evokes a sense of history and time in the sense of a book already written
and recorded. Thus the Book of life is linked to the meaning of a book
as a record, a printed volume. Gide uses both of these meanings as he
describes the positive hero of Les Faux-Monnaveurs. Bernard, experi
encing a bitter distaste after his night of sexual satiation:
U s'efforce de ne point penser, gen£ de devoir incorporer cette
nuit sans pr£c£dents, aux precedents de son historie. Non,
c ’est un appendice, une annexe, qui ne peut trouver place
dans le corps du livre—livre ou le r£clt de sa vie, comme si
de rien n’£tait, va continuer, n ’est-ce pas, va re prendre. (435).
A close relation to the Book of Life written by God is the
Book of Fate or Doom, presented in the Bible with its implications of
inevitable human liability recorded in the Ledger. The prophet Jere
miah declares, "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with
126
the point of a diam ond" Qer 17:1). E arlier the patriarch David had
cried out for deliverance from his enemies: “ Let them be blotted out
of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous” (Ps 69:
28). It is al9o David who, when he praised God, incorporated the con
cept of the Sacred Book with each of its ram ifications of life, history,
and fate:
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being im perfect, and in
thy book all my m em bers were written, which in continuance
were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them . (Ps 139:16)
In Revelations the m etaphor finds its fullest expression:
And I saw the dead, sm all and great, stand before God; and
the books were opened: and another book was opened, which
is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those
things which were w ritten in the books, according to their
works. (Rev 20:12)
A chilling emphasis follows the description of the second death: “And
whosoever was not found w ritten in the book of life was cast into the lake
of fire” (Rev 20:15).
Im plicit in the Book of Life metaphor is the concept of the
Divine Author. The ultim ate Creator occupies the apex of the infinite
regression suggested by the Book within a book. Edouard is the interior
fictional author created by Gide, and Edouard also writes about an author
whom we can im agine as the creator of yet another author. From the
opposite perspective we m ay view the fictional characters as infinitely
regressive. Cervantes utilized the sam e perspective when he showed the
127
Don reading Quixote as did Shakespeare when he made Hamlet a specta
tor of the inner play. When we observe Edouard writing his Faux-
Monnaveuis at the same tim e that we are reading Les Faux-Monnaveurs
by Gide, the thought may occur that we are also fictions in a book which
is being written —a book which may In fact already have an ending.
The Book of Life takes on a meaning that is more than m etaphorical.
Evidence that Gide held a partiality for this view may be
seen in his journals where he declares that he saw art as a game and the
universe as God's game (J III 89). The affinity between the writer as
author and the Divine Author is one of creative authority. Gide expres
ses the affinity through poetic metaphors of creation. The effort
expended in the first stage of creation, the strain to objectify the subject
reminds Gide of a navigator lost at sea (13:16). The next stage receives
analogy to architecture and refers at the same tim e to artistic form: “II
s’agit avant tout d'£tablir le champ d'action et d ’aplanir l'aire sur
laquelle £dlfler le livre”(13:25). He tries to describe the moment when
at last the subject emerges clearly:
j 'ai baratt£ le sujet dans ma tete, sans obtenlr le moindre
call lot, mais sans perdre 1’assurance que les grumeaux
ftnlraient bien par se former. Etrange matiSre liquide
qui, d'abord et longtemps, refuse de prendre consistence,
mals ou les particules solldes, h force d'etre remuSes,
aglt£es en tous sens, s'agglom&rent enfin et se s£parent
du p etit-lait. (13:27)
A plant image provides the final metaphor for the creative process as
Gide alludes to the living book:
Le livre, m aintenant, semble parfois dou6 de vie propre; on
dlrait une plante qut se d£veloppe, et le cerveau n ’est plus
que le vase plein de terreau qui l'alim ente et la contient.
(13:50)
The Old and New Testaments were not the only religious
volumes to express the idea of the Sacred Book. In the Moslem Koran,
Sura XIII, the Sacred Book receives mystical existence, for there It is
said that in heaven resides the original, the Mother of the Book. The
Koran also expresses the concept of the Sacred Book as one of God's
67
attributes, not merely as one of his works. The Jewish cabalists went
even further to establish the cult of the Book:
The Sepher Yetzlrah (Book of the Formation) written in Syria
or Palestine around the sixth century, reveals that Jehovah of the
Armies, God of Israel, and God Omnipotent created the universe
by means of the cardinal numbers that go from one to ten and
the twenty-two letters of the alphabet. That numbers may be
instruments or elem ents of the creation is the dogma of Pythag
oras and Iamblichus; that letters also may be used in jhe Crea
tion is a clear Indication of the new cult of writing.6 8
The Middle Ages and Renaissance added their own varia
tions to the traditions of the Books of Justice, Life, Fate and Doom.
67
Jorge LulsBorjes, Other Inquisitions, trans. Ruth L. C.
Simms (New York: 1966), p. 123.
6 6
129
The first is a personification of the Book through analogy to certain parts
of the human body such as the face. The Bible had m entioned a Book
of the Heart: “ Let not m ercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about
thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart”(Pr 3:3). The Book
thus personified represents a source of wisdom and instruction, as when
the m edieval poet Alan of L ille (11287-1202) saw a m an’s face as a
69
book in which his thoughts might be read. Shakespeare used this
aspect of the Sacred Book tradition in many of his plays. The com bi
nation of human parts and books becam e aesthetically endowed in the
Book of Beauty. In Shakespeare’ s King lohn a wom an’s face is a Book
71
of Beauty wherein one reads love (2, 1). The emphasis upon a book
as a source of instruction links the book to the other favorite m edieval
m etaphor, the m irror. Shakespeare com bines the two in Richard II:
" I ’ll read enough/ When I do see the very book indeed/ Where all my
sins are writ, and th a t’s m y se lf./ Give m e the glass, and therein w ill I
read” (4, 1). This link recalls G ide’s preference for the mirror m eta
phor In Paludes.
~
E. R . Curtius, European L iterature and the L atin Middle
Ages, p. 316.
T O
In Midsummer Night’s Dream the Book of Love writes In
the lover’s eyes (2. 2) and in L ove’ s Labor’s Lost wom en’s eyes are the
books that nourish the world (4, 3).
71
In Romeo and luliette Paris’s face is a volum e where
beauty had inscribed delight (1, 3) and in O thello this question appears:
“ Was this fair paper, this most goodly book, m ade to write ‘ whore ’
upon7” (4, 2).
130
The book personified with hum an attributes includes also
another slightly overlapping but nonetheless different tradition: the book
as a volum e o f blank pages, a passive recep tacle in w hich an active
force inscribes itself. The book o f beauty w rites upon a w om an's face,
72
as grief and tim e w rite changes in the fa ce. In each case the analogy
is based upon the face as tabula rasa. Sim ilarly Gide thinks of his book
as a recep tacle, and he desires to include w ithin it literally all his
experience and learning (13:18). In recognition of his successful use of
the book as recep tacle, the critic Irvin Stock said of Les F aux-
M onnaveurs th at “ it contains m ore of life than any other ever w ritten
. . . m ore of those form ulae, ideas, ‘truths' by w hich the hum an m ind
73
defines experience and prescribes for it."
In the R enaissance, the scientist Francis Bacon proposed in
the A dvancem ent of Learning th at God m ade two books: the volum e of
his w ill, the Scriptures, and the volum e of His Power, the universe:
He believed that the world was reducible to essential forms
(tem peratures, densities, weights, colors), which integrated,
in a lim ited num ber, an abecedarium naturae or series of
the letters with which the universal text is w ritten .74
72
Shakespeare, Com edy of Errors (5, 1),
73
“ A View of Les Faux-M onnaveurs.” Y ale French Studies.
No. 7 (1951), p . 72.
74
Borges, p . 124.
131
In the nineteenth century, No vails presented the Book of
Life In his novel, Heinrich von Ofterdlngen. In the herm it's cave,
Heinrich was left to browse through the book of his own life, which had
no conclusion, but which pictured various scenes and people from his
past and present.
In Les Faux-Monnaveurs the significant variation of the
Sacred Book is the reversal of the Book of Life (or World) to the Life
(or World) of the Book, or the Living Book. Its use dates to the twelfth
century, when in the works of Ausonius a poem was written to the writ
ing paper. Then in the sixteenth century John Owen, author of epi-
75
grams, reversed the Book of the World by declaring his book a world.
The seed of this idea may be found in the Bible where it was said by
Isaiah “the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll" (34:4), This
analogy between the firm am ent and a written work again appears in
Revelations, where the m ystical Book of the Seven Seals holds within
itself the world's future. The Lam b or Christ alone is worthy to open
this Book (Rev 5:6). The first four seals reveal the four horsemen of
the Apocalypse, while the fifth seal shows the martyrs slain for their
religion. The living Book concept appears again when the sixth seal is
opened to disclose a great earthquake, “and the sun becam e black as
sackcloth of hair, and the moon becam e as blood ; And the stars of
heaven fell unto the earth; And the heaven departed as a scroll when it
75
Curtlus, pp. 317-322.
132
_ 76
is rolled together** (Rev. 6:12-14). The concept of the World as a
Book considerably blurs the customary distinctions between fiction and
fact. In G ide’s work, the third-dim ensional autonomous character
which escapes the author's control is one manifestation of these disinte
grating boundaries. Gide comments upon the living quality of fictional
characters and their author's knowledge of them:
Le mauvais rom ancler constrult ses personnages; 1 1 les dirige
et les fait parler. Le vrai rom ancler les Scoute et les regarde
agir; 1 1 les entend parler des avant que de les connaltre, et
c'est d ’apres ce qu'il leur entend dire qu'il comprend peu &
peu qui. tls sont. (13:54)
The relationship between art and nature is also affected by the Living
Book with its blurred outline between illusion and reality. Gide endorses
the striking postulate of Oscar Wilde that nature copies art:
J'en tiens pour le paradoxe de Wilde: la nature im ite Tart;
et la r§gle de 1'artiste doit etre, non point de s'en tenir aux
propositions de la nature, mals de ne lul proposer rien qu'elle
ne puisse, qu'elle ne doive bientot im iter. (13:18)
Perhaps Glde's most authentic expression of the World as Book appears
at the end of the 1924 Journal:
I am not worried to know whether or not 1 believe in the exter
nal world: it is the feeling of reality that I haven't got. It
76
The author of Revelations, the Prophet John, is com
manded to eat "the little book which is open in the hand of the angel,"
the book of clairvoyant wisdom which "shall m ake thy belly bitter out
it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey" (Rev 10:8-11).
133
seems to me that we are all moving about in a fantastic show
and that what others call reality, that their external world,
has not much more existence than the world of Les Faux-
Monnaveurs or of Les Thibault.7 7
The final elem ent of the Sacred Book suggested by Gide in
his work is the Book as Literary Art, self-contained, descendant of the
Platonic doctrine of pure form. Edouard craves to write the pure novel,
to dispense with all dross elements which do not belong, to work only
with the essence. However, the perfect form is sharply contradicted
both by the images Edouard uses to describe his past and present work,
and also by his method:
Comme un paysage nocturne H la lueur soudaine d'un Eclair,
tout le drame surgit de 1'ombre, trds different de ce que je
m'efforgais en vain d'inventer. Les livres que j ’ai Merits
jusqu'H present me paraissent comparables S i ces basslns des
jardlns publics, d'un contour precis, parfait peut-etre, mais
ou l'eau captive est sans vie. A present, je la veux laisser
couler selon sa pente, tan tot rapide et tan tot lente, en des
lacis que je me refuse ft prevoir. (12:471)
The ornamental pool would seem to be a more apt image for the pure
novel he allegedly seeks. Furthermore, when Edouard proposes “Pour-
rait etre continue” (12:472) for his ending, he borrows Gide's intention
to leave his book open-ended (13:60) without Gide's awareness that this
ending contradicts the idea of pure form. As the reader will recall, Gide
planned that Edouard would not complete any novel, much less the
The journals of Andrg Gide. trans. Justin O'Brien, II, 8.
134
"pure” novel. In fact, Gide himself took the view that perfect form
creates an antithesis to life, to the living quality that can only define
Itself In the unwinding, unknown future. Just as he created the opposi
tion between "life” or the surface level of Les Faux-Monnaveurs and
the Interior struggle of Edouard to grasp It In fictional art, so he por
trays himself, as the author of the surface level in which Edouard
breathed, as allied with the life or chaos which cannot be enclosed. In
theory he also expressed this affinity with life as opposed to the
artificial:
La vie nous pr&ente de toutes parts quantity d ’amorces de
drames, mals il est rare que ceux-ci se poursuivent et se
desslnent comme a coutume de les filer un romancler. (13:57)
He uses Pauline as a mouthpiece in the body of the work when she
declares to Edouard, " . . . vous savez bien qu’il n’y a rlen de tel pour
s’Stemlser, que les situations fausses. C’est affaire & vous, romanciers,
de chercher & les rdsoudre. Dans la vie, rlen ne se r£sout; tout conti
nue” (452). It Is this partiality to life expressed in art not through per
fect form but through open form that explains Gide’s unrestrained use of
allusions In the surface story. The novel’s external fabric bulges with
allusions. Of these, most are literary: the poets Wordsworth, Tennyson,
Walt Whitman, Lamartine, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire; the playwrights
Shakespeare and Hugo, the novelists F£nelon, Dostoevsky, Rabelais,
Carlyle, Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal, Merime£, Dickens and the
135
Goncourts, and the essayists or critics Montaigne, Pascal, Sainte-Beuve,
Fontenelle, and La Rochefoucauld. Gide also alludes to Biblical and
mythological figures: Cain and Abel, Theseus, Jason, Apollo and
Daphne, Pegasus, the harpies, Narcissus and Odysseus. In addition,
there are the historians Tocquevllle and Tacitus, the painters Ucello
and T itian, and the musician Bach. Hence the irony behind the state
ment in G ide’s Journal, “ Le roman s’est toujours, et dans tous les pays,
jusqu’& present cramponn€ & la rdalit3” (13:38). This cramming of the
surface story is not undertaken, however, in the resigned belief that no
novelty remains possible in the novel form. Clues to G ide’s experim en
tal endeavor lie in the innovative literal presentation of the struggle
between Bernard and the angel as well as in the demon imagery and in
the references to myth. For in the same passage where he describes the
restrictions imposed on the novel by realism, he also states, “Seul, le
ton de l ’dpopde me convient et me peut satlsfaire; peut sortir le roman
de son omifire r^aliste” (13:38). He sought the epic tone because with
its reliance upon fantasy it diminishes the pedagogical need to prove its
“realism ” through the “thingness” of photographic details. The epic tone
reinforces the blurred outline between illusion and fact.
The significance of the Sacred Book rests upon its resolution
of the conflict between form and chaos. This harmony is achieved
through the dual tem porality of the Living Book: on one level the
present unfolds In a linear day after day, while on the other the tem poral
136
totality circles in eternal completion. On the eternal level the Sacred
Book Is perfect and self-contained, while on the temporal level it mani
fests the unknown of life as it unfolds page after page.
Gide's achievement in Les Faux-Monnaveurs is akin to this
accomplished harmony. In this book he has demonstrated the impossibil
ity of enclosing life within fictional boundaries, as Edouard fails in his
endeavor to write a novel, yet at the same tim e Les Faux-Monnaveurs
has been written. The two levels of the work resemble the dual nature
of the Sacred Book in Its paradox of temporal and eternal tim e. We
have experienced the unfolding days and pages of Vedels, Mol in lets,
and Profit!endieus in a temporal setting analogous to the processes of
continuing life. At the same tim e we hold in our hands the completed
volume of Les Faux-Monnaveurs to which another line will never be
added. Moreover, every human being faces the same dilemma in time
as Edouard, the Gidean novelist. That dilem m a is the shaping of a
7B
meaningful life in an orderly temporal sequence without becoming
closed to the spontaneous possibilities of each day. As Gide himself
writes, " . . . je tenais pour ‘ contlngence* . . . tout ce qui n’dtait pas
‘absolu,’ toute la prismatique diversity de la vie” (X: 321).
n
Germaine Br£e, "Tim e Sequences and Consequences in the
Gidean World,” Yale French Studies. N o.7 (1951), p. 59.
CONCLUSION
Les Cahiets d ’Andrg Walter. Paludes and Les Faux-
Monnaveurs all manifest form as them e, because each work takes Itself
as a subject. In Andr6 W alter's notebooks, form becomes them e in the
sense that all aesthetic considerations of medium and process are formal
considerations. Form and them e are indistinguishable in Paludes when
the narrator-author becomes the reader of his own work, because the
reading experience through which the form is gradually perceived is
incorporated as a them e in itself. Finally, in Les Faux-Monnaveurs the
two journals of Edouard and of Gide produce the phenomenon of the self-
contem plating novel in a living autonomy, as form becomes them e.
We have seen the motifs of dream, mirror and living book,
and Gide's use of them to contem plate illusion and reality. He con
cludes that not only is there no pure fact, for all is interm ingled with
fantasy, but that there is also no pure fiction, for em pirical reality per
vades the novel. There can be no pure novel, for the novel is created
from em pirical reality and artistic ftllusion alike. The concept of the
pure novel in Gide's work originates, as we have seen, in the Sacred
Book of Le Trait £ du Narcisse. The self-contained quality of the Sacred
137
138
Book Is emphasized, and it implies a completion and a harmony which
elim inates the superfluous and includes only the essence. Gide describes
the Sacred Book: “ou se lisait la v£rit£ qu’il faut connaltre” ; as a distil
lation of wisdom and truth. Fiction, however, deals with human expe
rience which has been shaped according to the author's vision. Edouard,
the narrator of Paludes. and Andr£ Walter all fail in their efforts towards
the pure novel. Gide demonstrates that if beauty must be the only mes
sage of an art of the beautiful, the novel fails by virtue of its empirical
tendencies. Fortunately, this does not exclude it from the realm of art,
for by its very difficult balance of fact and fantasy it earns a pedestal of
its own, level with but apart from the pure arts of the beautiful.
Gide's love of aesthetic theory is displayed by his favorite
motifs. AndrS Walter, the narrator of Paludes. and Edouard share a
literary-oriented reality, and Gide reveals the outcomes of life as drearrv
as reflection, and as fiction. In Paludes he plays with historical criti
cism, presenting the various m imetic theories of Plato, Aristotle, the
Romantics, and the modems, and in Les Faux-Monnaveurs he delights
In placing revered opinions into the mouths of eloquent fools. At the
same moment that he satirizes these hallowed theories, he forces the
reader to evaluate the very uncomfortable relation between his own
experiences and those of Gide's characters. The reader must ask, with
Andr£ Walter, whether his life is also a dream from which he may
awaken unto death, whether his mind is a distorted m inor of reality like
139
the mind of Pal tides* narrator, and whether, like Edouard, he is not also
a character whose story has already been written. In this sense Gide’s
work offers both instruction and subtle warning.
The three works show a marked progression of moral vision,
and this progress is represented by Gide’s changing use of the Jacob
m otif. From the sim plistic tension of AndrS W alter’s interpretation —
that Jacob’s struggle with the angel represents the struggle between the
angei-soul and the beast-body— we see Bernard in Les Faux-Monnaveurs
struggle between the more complex alternatives of the honorable and
self-searching angel and the lover of easy solutions and self-deceiving
devil. The fact that Gide presents Bernard’s struggle literally shows the
gradual freedom he has attained through his concept of cantilevered fact
and fantasy.
Paludes and Les Faux-Monnaveurs focus on the interior book
and on its im plications concerning the phenomenon of infinite regression.
In Paludes the mirror relationship between the inner and outer book
creates a linear, reflexive movement as the two opposing worlds of fic
tional reality and inner fiction are played off against one another. This
mirror relationship arouses the reader’s spatial perceptions as the inner
book expands beyond its boundaries. In Les Faux-Monnaveurs the book
within a book manifests the them e of self-discovery which underlies the
experiences of the characters, for the inner book functions like the sub
ject within a group. It enables the reader to see the variety of stimuli
140
tn the external world and, at the same tim e, the suggested particularity
of Edouard’s work and what it has digested from its environment.
Gide’s innovative techniques of fiction in Les Faux-
Monnaveurs include three different narrators or Incarnations of creative
consciousness as well as the tripled magnification of perspective sup
plied by the addition of his own journal. As we have seen, the two jour
nals also allow the reader to compare the processes of expansion and
contraction as Gide modifies his work for Edouard’ s use. The differ
ences between the intent of the journals and their function embody the
reasons for Edouard’s failure to write not only the pure novel, but no
novel at all. His narcissistic interest in the way he creates rather than
in what he creates provides a comment on the creative paralysis that
results when self-consciousness becomes acute. Glde seems to be say
ing that although the human mind and the reality it perceives may be
structured in a regressive manner, and although the perspectives afforded
are interesting in themselves, the mentality that becomes fascinated
with its own mechanism becomes lost to all activity, a parasite upon
its own energy.
Gide achieves in these works a liberation of the reader from
his inherently limited viewpoint in space and tim e. He has shown us
the perceptions of reality from three sides at once: the Inner mind, the
external world of fact, and the transformation of data from these two
aspects Into art. He has demonstrated not only that all form Is spatially
141
perceived but also that form itself is antithetical to the chaos of life
energy. It is in these areas that Gide has opened new avenues for study:
literary form is not entirely dependent upon tim e as Lessing had m ain
tained. Gide’s work again suggests the question, to what extent is the
novel spatial? His use of the interior book demonstrates that in fiction,
form implies space and shape. It is when these boundaries are crossed,
such as when the interior book merges with the exterior, that a three-
dimensional or living effect is achieved. In this way Gide utilizes the
life polarity in conjunction with its opposite, the enclosures and com
pletions of artistic form, to achieve the impossible: a work such as
Les Faux-Monnaveurs that is both open-ended and closed at the same
tim e, a novel that embodies through form as them e the conflict between
form and chaos.
«
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142
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