Folie, Désir, Mort : La folie féminine dans L’Amant de Marguerite Duras

Abstract

The theme of madness pervades the majority of Marguerite Duras’ novels. Writing during a time when the subject of madness was in the process of being philosophically revolutionized by Foucault’s seminal writings on the topic, and when, subsequently, the question of women, madness, and writing was at the forefront of literary scholarship, Marguerite Duras’ novels offer fascinating insight into how, in light of these events, a woman writer would choose to write madness and express, through writing, anxiety around feminine madness in particular. The novel examined here, L’Amant (The Lover), conveys the fear of feminine madness principally through its portrayal as a contagion spread silently between women. Madness is also communicated thematically through the imagery of death in the form of water, the forest, and wild animals, as well as through the characters’ symbolic function and sexual acts. What this novel offers uniquely is a vision of feminine madness that is culturally distinct, as the madwoman of the colonizing society encounters the madwoman whose world is being colonized. This intersection allows for interesting discussion of how the portrait of a madwoman’s existence varies so profoundly according to how her culture conceptualizes, and reacts towards, madness.