Chapter 1: L’Asphyxie: The Double Face of Modernity

Alex Hughes

From Violette Leduc: Mothers, Lovers, and Language (1994), pp. 15-39, doi:10.59860/td.c37e2f5

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Part of the book: Violette Leduc

Alex Hughes

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 37

W. S. Maney & Son Ltd for the Modern Humanities Research Association

ContemporaryFrenchFictionopen


Abstract.  The twenty-one tableaux which make up L’Asphyxie describe the dealings of its heroine, a child of indeterminate age, with her mother, her grandmother and a host of curious and frequently grotesque individuals who inhabit the provincial French town in which the work is set. Given the ambiguity surrounding the narrative focalization in L’Asphyxie, it is safe to assume that the novel’s account of its heroine’s relations with what are in fact two maternal figures, her mother and her grandmother, somehow amalgamates a youthful and an adult vision of these relations. This chapter seeks to examine some of the different ways in which Leduc’s portrayal of mother/daughter interaction in the novel may be read.

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