The Alchemical Magnum Opus in Nodier's La Fée aux Miettes

The structure and nature of Michel's evolution in La Fée aux Miettes (1832), Nodier's tale of transformation and initiation, are analogous to the magnum opus. Further, the story's imagery and symbolism are fraught with alchemical meaning; at every stage, dominant colors and their progression correspond to the Work; numerous other elements, such as names, setting, the mandrake, the circle amplify these resonances. An energizing catalyst, the white, scintillating Fée, acts on the melancholic Michel, the prima materia, causing him to enter a period of disintegration or first death, the "nigredo," that is, his world denial. Secondly, his increasingly proven devotion to the Fée in Scotland recalls the "albedo," a distillation leading to innocence and purity. Thirdly, this state of intense preparedness and inspiration in the asylum is like the "rubedo," signaling that love and faith have perfected and readied the subject for transmutation into gold by the Philosopher's Stone, or, here, the magic transforming mandrake. Finally, Michel attains the Queen of Sheba/Belkiss and Solomon's realm as King, fulfilling his potentiality and representing a union of opposites, a psychic wholeness, an enlightenment, like the alchemical gold. (GC)