The CAPital Letter: Balzac's Le Colonel Chabert and the Names of a Rose

This article examines sounds, names, and the writing of them in Le Colonel Chabert in order to uncover a subtext of primitive nightmare and fairy tale. The primary phonic clues are condensed into the names of the two central characters, Colonel Chabert and Rose Chapotel, and they echo the roots /kab/ and /ap/ found in words evoking the horse and the head. These phonemes and sememes point beyond the verbal narrative to the bodily relation of the protagonists to their most intimate fears and desires, and ultimately to the triumph of feminine desire over the laws/loss of the father. (ML)