The Epistemology of the Mantelpiece: Subversive Ornaments in the novels of Guy de Maupassant

Author: Counter, Andrew J.¹

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 3, 1 July 2008 , pp. 682-696(15)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article examines episodes from three novels by Guy de Maupassant, Notre Cœur (1890), Bel-Ami (1885), and Pierre et Jean (1888), and analyses how mantelpieces and ornaments become a privileged topos for the fictional investigation of epistemology and the phenomenon of disavowal. Through a parallel treatment of Maupassant and several texts of psychoanalysis, the article suggests a version of Maupassant which differs from critical representations of Maupassant as a pessimistic hater of the bourgeoisie. He emerges instead as ethically more ambiguous, and aware that a certain amount of disavowal is inevitable and indeed necessary in any given community.

Keywords: Guy de Maupassant; ornaments; epistemology; disavowal; psychoanalysis

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Christ's College, Cambridge

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