L'Impossible dire dans le texte stendhalien

"L'Impossible dire dans le texte stendhalien" explores the oedipal structure of communication in Armance, Le Rouge et le Noir, and Les Cenci. In these texts the figure of the mother appears as the obstacle to the discourse of desire. Octave's impotence and Julien's death on the guillotine give narrative expression to Stendhal's allegory of a language that has been severed from the mother and from the precursor text. Stendhal feminizes his heroes by identifying them with the mother as victim. The elimination of the Name of the Father cannot suppress the Law of the Father, which reasserts itself through juridical power (Le Rouge et le Noir) and ecclesiastical power (Les Cenci). (In French) (ML)