Balzac's Linguistic Deception in his `Princesse de Cadignan'

Balzac's presentation is direct and clearly informative only on the surface. His language, however, is misguiding and it stirs readers ostensibly in one direction in order to arrive, deviously, elsewhere. This article studies the author's double level of discourse, his virtuosity and counter-manipulative technique, and the linearity of the story line versus its sequentiality. The multiple facets that have been interjected in the conventional range of language end by delineating an aesthetic quality beyond any moral judgment. In accordance with the author's unavowed intentions, the Princess emerges triumphant, having conquered the readers' interest and a degree of their sympathy. (DF-McC)