The Love Theme and the Monologue Structure in Armance

Stendhal presents as the dominant theme of his first novel, the Octave-Armance love affair. He enhances the increasing dramatic tension of the relationship between the two cousins by employing the obstacle technique. In each of seven obstacle structures, he follows a discernible pattern, inserting between the obstacle and its resolution, a meditative phase marked by alternating hope and despair expressed in bursts of interior monologue. Unity is achieved by allowing another mysterious theme, the hero's sexual inadequacy, to constitute a nagging presence in each structure and by establishing it as both the initial obstacle and the final insurmountable one that culminates in Octave's despair and suicide. (PTC)