Throw Away the Key: the Prison as Maternal Space in the Stendhalian Novel

For Fabrice and Julien, protagonists of Stendhal's La Chartreuse de Parme and Le Rouge et le Noir, the Stendhalian prison is a place of discovery. Both Fabrice and Julien cling desperately to this maternal haven in an attempt to escape the marginalization that awaits them in the patriarchal order. The maternal prison represents a preverbal space reminiscent of Julia Kristeva's sémiotique, in which the young men and their maternal mistresses can co-exist in a comforting return to the interdependence of mother and infant, before the intrusion of language and culture forces them to conform to the strictures of patriarchal society. (LGA)