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M e t a p h o r a n d Mise en abyme in the Nouveau Roman

C O N S T A N T I N T O L O U D I S , University of Rhode Island

Few things have been taken for granted, in the las t two decades , more readi lythan the l ink be tween s t ruc tura l i sm and the nouveau roman. To a la rge ex ten t , th i scould be explained by the simple fact that in i ts broad definit ions and in the oftenconfused or abusive interpreta t ions of i ts c la ims, s t ructural ism was long thought ofas being closely t ied to practically every kind of avant-garde activity. The 1960sand the 1970s were c lear ly per iods of preoccupat ion with a radical reor ientat ionof crit icism and li terary consciousness, reflecting the sensit ivit ies and aspirations ofthe p ost-P rous t ian, po st-Existent ia l ist era . But even in i ts m or e specia l ized an d thu smore re levan t vers ions , s t ruc tura l i sm re ta ins an unques t ionable degree of a t t rac tiveness for students of l i terary culture, since i t asserts i tself basically as a "modeof analysis which or iginates in the methods of contemporary l inguis t ics ."

1 In tu rn ,

the experimental pract ices involved in the quest of the nouveau roman, as seen bymost of i ts exegetes, are concerned with the novel as process and with the dialecticsof form and s ignif icat ion. Indeed, the asser t ion that i ts formalis t quest is promotedth ro u gh sub vers ion of the mim etic / repres entat ion al funct ions of the narra t ive is bynow rather commonplace in cr i t ical l i tera ture deal ing with the subject . Dis integrat ion of plot an d c hara cter , ref lexivi ty , p lay of recu rren ce s , a leatory associat ions an d"bricolages ," have a l l been indent i f ied as s t ra tegies of more or less coordinatedat tempts of subvers ion. To what extent are the pract ices of the nouveau romanconsis tent with the not ion of l i tera ture as system in which, as in the Saussur ianconcept ion of language, everything is held together— tout se tient—and consti tutivepar ts of a whole are "meaningful" by the networks of their in terre la t ions but neverin isola t ion and cer ta inly never by reference to an order , or real i ty , extraneous tothe system? If the decisive criterion for the structuralist outlook is the direct l inkwith l inguistics, how can it be reconciled with the later phases of the nouveau romanin which i ts formalism betrays ra ther a desire to escape from Western logocentr ismand i ts metaphysics?

In discussing the pract ice of metaphor and mise en abyme, wha t I pr op os e toaddress are some key aspects of the s t ructural is t or ienta t ion discernible in some ofthe bes t -known examples o f the nouveau roman. And in so doing, I hope to offersome new assessments of i ts impact in an area of cul tural act ivi ty where c la ims ofradical change and renewal cont inue to s t i r controversy.

I t is by now well es tabl ished that the s t ructural is t rev olut ion br ou gh t abo ut ,among o ther th ings , a g radua l re in te rpre ta t ion of the rhe tor ic and poe t ics o f the

Aris tote l ian her i tage. Revi ta l ized by s t ructural l inguis t ics , rhetor ic unders tood as"a the ory of f igures of speec h" is th e object of in tense pre occ up at io n in the 1960sand 1970s, as the publ icat ion of the much accla imed Rhétorique générale (Larousse ,1970) dem on s t ra tes . Characte ri s ti ca lly , one of the m os t im por tan t d eve lo pm ents inthis area , in the la te 1960s and throughout the 1970s, points to an extraordinaryreclass i f icat ion of the s ta tus of metaphor . The categories of the Aris tote l ian inspi-

' J o n a th a n C u l l e r , Structuralist oetics (I thaca, NY: Cornell Universi ty Press , 1975), pp. 3-4. See a lso ClaudeLévi-Strauss , "L 'Analyse s tructurale en l inguis t ique e t en anthropologie ," in Anthropologie structurale (Paris:Pion, 1958); and Ro land B arthe s , "Science versus Literatu re ," The Tim es Literary Supplement, 2 8 S e p t e m b e r

1967, pp . 897-98 .

Metaphor and Mise en abyme in t he Nouveau Rom an 7



r a t i on un de rg o an un p rec ed en te d r ev is ion . I n a r a the r pe r si s ten t t r end , t he p r e dominant tendency is to subject the old taxonomy to new and re lent less reduct ionis tpre ssu res , leanin g decis ively in favor of m eta ph or , of ten t r eat in g it as a ge ner icterm for all figures of speech, as a "figure of all figures," a "trope of all tropes."

2

But the question of metaphoricity considered as the essence of all f igurativeness isa b roader i s sue . As a p rac t ice o f the nouveau roman, metaphor has been no t iced

as a crucial object of study for the specific reason that i t was presumed radicallymo dif ied to serve as a m ean s of "subve rs ion," in an intent iona l d ep ar tu re f romestabl ished convent ions of narra t ive discourse and, therefore , of the novel .

The phenomenon that drew at tent ion f i rs t in that respect was in fact no lessthan a process of "control led" f igurat ion resul t ing in actual suspension of the metaphor ica l t rans fe r o f meaning and a imed a t l ibe ra t ing the po ten t ia l o f metaphoras a s t ructural /generat ive process , f ree of t ranscendental , or metaphysical , referent ia l f rameworks posi t ing the exis tence of a preordained real i ty .

3 I t was Ricardou

who construed its specificity in that light first. He was also the first to refer to it as

"s t ruc tura l metaphor" in s tud ies t rac ing i t s o r ig ins in p recursors o f the nouveauroman such as Poe and Proust ,

4 or analyzing i ts effects in Robbe-Grillet 's seemingly

unmot iva ted , unromant ic descr ip t ions of ob jec t s5 and Claude S imon 's sub t le ex

p lo i ta t ion of puns .6

The specif ic i ty of metaphor in the nouveau roman is also assessed in tho se ter m sin the s tudies of Pierre Caminade who shares many of Ricardou 's views and of tenresor ts to the la t ter ' s conceptual baggage and terminology. Typical ly , in his analysisof Claude S imon 's L'Herbe, he sees the ent i re novel as dominated by a "metaphoricalmovement" and apt ly i l lus t ra tes the novel is t ' s use of "s t ructural metaphor" as ameans of expanding " the connotat ive f ie ld of f ic t ion." ' Likewise , metaphorical rela t ions in w ord associations and nar ra t iv e s t ra tegies of the type analyzed by Rica rdouare s tudied in essent ia l ly the same terms by Stephen Heath who sees the nouveauroman as a product of the s t ructural is t consciousness and i ts pract i t ioners as s t rugg l ing pr imar i ly wi th the prob lemat ics o f l anguage .

8

But le t us now turn to the mise en abyme, the device w hose na m e, so r ich inconnota t ions th rough i t s assoc ia t ion wi th André Gide , has by now earned an evenmore deserved p lace in h i s to ry th rough the excep t iona l ly var ied and ambi t iousapplications i t identifies in the nouveau roman. In some respects , as has of ten been

2Cf. Jacques So jcher , "La Métaphore généra l i sée ," Revue internationale de philosophie. No . 8 7 ( 1 9 6 9 ) , p p . 5 8 -6 8 ; Michel Deguy, "Vers une f igure général isée ," Critique, No. 269 (Oct. 1969), pp. 8 4 1 - 6 1 ; J . D upois e ta l . (Le Groupe \i), Rhétorique Générale (Paris : Librair ie Larouss e, 1970); Michel Le G ue rn , Sémantique de lamétaphore et de la métonymie (Paris : Librair ie L arousse, 1973).

3Cf. Robbe-Gril le t ' s comments in Nouveau Roman: Hiers, aujourd'hui, éd . Jea n R ica rdou (Par is : Union G énéral e d 'Ed it ion , 1972), I 281-8 2. O ne is rem ind ed of Robbe-Gril le t 's b lanket denun ciat io n of not only

m eta ph or bu t a l so ana log ica l re la t ions in genera l , in h is "N a tu r e , hum anism e , t ragéd ie ," in 1958 . F rom

that extreme posi t ion he had to re treat considerably in 1961 (see "Procès à Robbe-Gril le t ," Clarté, No . 3 9 ,Dec. 196 1, p . 9) an d a gain d ur in g this d iscussion at Cerisy in 1971 .

4 J e a n R ic a r d o u , Problèmes du nouveau roman (Paris: Seuil, 1967), pp. 135-41.

5 Jean R ica rdou , pp . 149-54 .

6Jean R ica rdo u , pp . 44-55 . Also , Je an R ica rdou , Pour une théorie du nouveau roman (Paris: Seuil, 1 971), pp .133-37.

' P i e r r e C a m in a d e , "L e M o u v e m e n t m é ta p h o r iq u e d a n s L'Herbe, in Claude Simon: Analyse, théorie, éd . J ea nRicard ou (Par i s : Un ion G énér a le d 'Ed i t ion , 1975) , p . 352 .

8 S t e p h e n H e a t h , The Nouveau Roman: A Study in the Practice of Writing (Ph i lade lph ia : Temple Univers i ty

Press , 1972), pp. 47-152, 153-78.

28 The International Fiction Review, 10, N o. 1 (1983)



no ted ,9 the multiplicity of variations that some of the novelists derive from the

"story within a s tory" model of the Gidean concept ion a t tes ts perhaps more e loquent ly than any other innovat ion to the invent iveness and ingenui ty they displayedin the course of their quest . As in the case of metaphor , s t ructural is t pr inciplesguide the narra t ive s t ra tegy served by the "adjusted" appl icat ions of the device .Engaged in a fa r - reach ing process o f t rans format ion and reor ien ta t ion , the mise en

abyme a ims at the sam e effects of non- tran sce nd en tal analogical re la t ions pu rs ue dth ro ug h "s t ru ctura l m eta ph or ." In this case too, the obvious inte nt is to sus pe ndthe t rans fe r o f me anin g in o r de r to p reve nt iden t if ica tion of the com pa r ing e lem entby the compared . Though the s imi la r i ty in these a t tempts to p roduce new modelso f m e t a p h o r a n d mise en abyme, respect ively , appe ars to be an in tr igu ing object ofs tudy, i t has not been, to my knowledge, invest igated thoroughly by anyone so far .But it has no t gon e unnot iced e i ther . "Wh at is ha pp en ing to m etap ho r in the nouveauroman . . . is a lso ha pp en in g to th e m ise en a bym e," observed Je an -P ier re Vidalduring the Claude Simon col loquium at Cerisy in 1974.

10 Inasmuch as they address

the subject in that perspect ive , Lucien Däl lenbach, Je an Ricardo u, an d Br uce M or-

issette concur with that view even if the conclusions they reach do not alwayscoincide.

In the experimental pract ices of the nouveau roman, the funct ion of e lucida t ionand self - interpreta t ion of the Gidean prototype—cf. Gide 's remark: Nothing i l lust ra tes a ta le bet ter than i ts in ter ior dupl icat ion—is no longer the purpose. By thelogic of the Gidean approach, inser t ing a reduced model of the "s tory" within thewide r per i m ete r of the novel is s imply a me chan ism i nten de d to en ha nc e a givenparadigm of fiction.

In keeping with the "doctr ine of express ion," to use Ricardou 's favori te c l iché,this m od e of figuration is based o n the assu m ptio n th at the sem antic field of anarra t ive sequence can be e i ther "compressed" or "di la ted" a l lowing dupl icat ionth ro ug h con vers ion to an ot he r scale. Pro duc t ion of fiction is thu s un de rs t oo d toresul t f rom the inte gra ted effects of a "s tory" an d i ts do ub les ." In this perspect ive ,no re la t ion betw een the "enclaves" or between an enclave and the wider f ram e inwhich it is em be dd ed is in t en de d as antagon is t ic . Bu t in the device most typicallyfound in the nouveau roman, the re la t ion betw een m odels is balanced in th e opp osi tesense. Used in competit ive or conflictual concatenations, i ts primary role is to susp e n d t h e p e r f o r m a n c e o f r e f e r e n t i a l f u n c t i o n s , t o c o n t e s t t h e m i metic / representat ional aspects of the device . Accordingly, in this la t ter perspect ive ,the product ion of f ic t ion is unders tood to be the effect of the i r reducible presenceof mult iple models displaying points of analogy in a manner that s t resses ra therthan masks an inescapable sense of separateness and dis junct ion. In this "s t ructuralrevol t of a f rag m ent against the overal l narra t ive w hich contains i t,"

12 fiction asserts

i tself merely as a design of combinations, as a display of an indefinite number ofpossibilities.

I t was not long before a t tent ive readers of the nouveau roman becam e aw are ofthe perplexing subt le ty of purpose in the repeated appl icat ions of the device . Thefrequency with which i t was used was characterist ically high. And the vehiclesinvented for i ts use reveal a var ie ty of s t ructural concepts : micro-his tory ( reduced

9Cf. Lucien Dällenbach, Le Récit spéculaire: Essai sur la mise en abyme (Paris: Seuil, 1977), pp . 151-211 , andAn n J e f f e r s o n , The Nouveau Roman and the oetics of Fiction (Cam bridg e: Cam brid ge Universi ty Press , 1980),p p . 193-206.

i0Claude Simon: Analyse, théorie, p. 172.

"Cf. Lucien Dällenbach, pp. 76-98.

12

Jean R ica rdou , Problèmes du nouveau roman, p . 181.

Metaphor and Mise en abyme in t he Nouveau Rom an 29



m odels o f the s to ry) , pa in t ings , b lazons , engrav ings , bas-relief sculpture, f igurines.In Robbe-Gri l le t ' s Le Voyeur, an no un c in g the rape scene an d the na tur e of M ath ias ' sgui l t , a movie poster depicts a scene of violence—a man s t rangl ing a young gir l ,the la t ter kneel ing beside a dol l that was r ipped. The novel that A began to read,in La Jalousie, a n d which is abo ut a jealo us hus ba nd a nd a n unfai thful wife, sketchesa s i tuat ion which p aral le ls that of the s tory centra l to Robbe-Gri l le t ' s book , involving

A hers elf a n d a l lud ed to by the book 's t it le . Also in Robbe-Gri l le t 's Dans le Labyrinthe,an en gr av ing is desc r ibed as dep ict ing a place an d a s i tuat ion ident ical or ana log ousto those of th e scene in the café , the la t ter bec om ing the po int wh ere a ll the " th rea dsof Ar iadne" lead . In Claude S imon 's L a R oute des Flandres, the "f issured" po rtra i tof Captain Reixach 's ancestor te l ls a s tory that seems to dupl icate that of Reixachhimself; in his L'Herbe, the l id of the cookie t in—so important as a whole and as a"s t ruc tura l metaphor"—is decora ted by a woman dressed in whi te who ho lds anident ical box in he r ha nd an d is ly ing in the grass , thu s meta ph oriz ing a majoraspect of the novel , through a sor t of cont inuous f iss ion of the focal repet i t ionpa t t e rn .

In Bu to r ' s Passage de Milan, the canvas be ing pa in ted by DeVere , dur ing thefateful par ty on th e fou rth f loor, is pre sag ing com ing events , an d as such s tand sas a metaphor for "passage," the process that the ent i re book is a l l about ; in hisL'Emploi du temps, a detect ive novel bein g rea d by Revel (The Murder of Bleston),tape str ies in the m us eu m , s ta ined-glass window s in the cat he dra l can a ll be p erceivedas vehicles for the device , s ince they are ref lect ions of one another and a t the sametime reflections of the major aspects of the story. Similarly, in Claude Ollier 's LaMise en scène, the in t r igu ing repres en ta t ion s in rupe s t ra l engrav ings beco me a l lu s ions to aggress ive gestu res and to the m u rd e r s tory which is an ot he r major com

ponent o f th i s nove l .

Now let us consider the implications of this poetic logic in the process of"produc t ion by ana logy" seen in the la te r phases o f the nouveau roman. The des i reto use mise en abyme "s t ructu ral ly" grad ual ly led to an ex pan sion of its fie ld an d toa general izat ion of i ts appl icat ion. The rule of dupl icat ion became a rule of mult iplemir ror re f lec t ion . Pursued th rough an ever - increas ing degree of re f lex iv i ty , theprocess surrendered to the wil l to valor ize immanence a t the expense of a l l e lse .In texts l ike Simon's Corps conducteurs a n d Triptique, Bu to r ' s Où, Pinget 's Fable,Rica rdou ' s Les Lieux-dits, the prol i fera t ion of the mise en abyme is so pervasiv e th atthe device is "diffused even on the level of the phrase." 1 3 In fact, in highly reflexivetexts l ike Ricardou 's Les Lieux-dits, th e mise en abyme as a possible narrative strategyis "ev ic ted ," as the au th or h im se l f so pa ins tak ing ly dem on s t ra te d . In the t igh ten inggr ip of th i s insu la r , he rmet ic fo rmal i sm, the language of fiction is replaced by "écriture ," a se lf -generat ing system, concerned with the exhibi t ion of the fiction of language instead. As such, the writ ten text becomes self-reflective, narcissist ic. At longlast , he ra lde d som e cri t ics , the novel is da r in g en ou gh to deal with i ts own m ythIn 19 71 , i t was a l read y obviou s that a nouveau nouveau roman was emerg ing . Morean d m or e , i t r e l ied on " the dou ble cons t ra in t o f the word for word and th e ge ner a l"as well as th e "systematic br in gin g into play of abstract f igures, w he the r geo m etr ic ,a r i thmet ica l o r g rammat ica l . " At th i s s tage , the nouveau roman breaks with everykind of real ism in deal ing with psychological motivat ion and thus appears as anexerc i se in "produc t ion of pure tex t . "

14 Several new books, a l ready on the scene,

offered incontestable evidence of th is radical izat ion: Robbe-Gri l le t ' s La Maison deRendez-vous, S imon 's La Bataille de Pharsale, Pinget 's Le Libéra, J ean -Lou i s Baudry ' sPersonnes, Sollers 's Nom bres. What these books reveal most emphat ical ly is the depth

•'Françoise van Rossum-Guyon, in Nouveau roman: Hier, aujourd hui, I, 40 3.

' 'Françoise van Rossum-Guyon, p. 404.

30 The International Fiction Review, 10, N o. 1 (1983)



of the i rreconc i lable dif ferences in ideology an d phi loso phy tha t divide d the a ut ho rsof the nouveau roman. At Cerisy, i t was acknowledged that novel is ts who accommodated themselves with the mil i tant posi t ions of Tel Quel could n ot long er b ethought of as pract is ing the same genre as wri ters l ike Sarraute and Butor . As i twas unders tood at the t ime, Sarraute was s t i l l entrenched in the bel ief of a psychological anter ior i ty being the or igin of e i ther language or " text ," and Butor

engaged in the pract ice of a provocat ively innovat ive formalism, but of a kind thatfa iled to cha l leng e the "do ctr ine of repre sen tat io n." At the t ime of this polar iza t ion,th e nouveau roman of an ear l ier day looked almost react ionary. Character is t ical ly ,by 1968, Phi l ippe Sol lers could take an openly adversary posi t ion and actual lydenounce wh at he cal led " l ' idéologie posit iv iste du N ouv eau R om an q ui os il le e nt reune survivance psychologis te—courant de conscience—et un 'descr ipt ionisme' déc-ora t ivement s t ruc tura l . "

1 5

I t would be unnecessary perhaps to review here a l l the implicat ions of therevolu t ionary or ien ta t ion of the Tel Quel gr ou p, the the ories an d p ract ices of i ts

proselytes. But even a cursory look into the posit ions i t art iculated in the late 1960sis suff ic ient to remind us that despi te the antagonisms and schisms i t provokedwithin i ts own ranks, i t reflected above all a logical evolution of the anti-bourgeoisinte l lectual avant-garde of the 1950s with which the nouveau roman was first identif ied. In fact , what could appear as rigorous radicalization in 1970 was merely aphase of the dia lect ics that grew out of the "Era of Suspicion," expanding on, andsystematiz ing som e of the ant i -hu m anis t arg um en ts pu t forward as ear ly as 1958by Robbe-Gri l le t in his "Nature , humanisme, t ragédie ." Inescapably, the quest ofth e nouveau roman was identified very closely with the latter 's comprehensive indic tm en t of hu m an ism in l i tera ture , wi th his cr i t ique of the m etaphysics of f igura-

t iveness and the process of " recuperat ion" that keeps l i tera ture subservient to anideology, i ts system of values and its self-preservation. Exploring the possibil i t iesof a new rhetoric of fiction to be derived from a language free of the threat ofre cu pe ra tio n is an essential par t of tha t que st. I t is precisely tha t par t of the q ue stthat the s t ra tegies of the nouveau nouveau roman p ro m oted t o an a lmos t pa roxysma lex trem e. A nd i t is a t that po int that the appl icabi li ty of s t ructural is t concepts reach esi ts l imits . The effect of "s t ructural metaphor ," as shown by Ricardou, i l lus t ra teshow immensely the s t ructural is t or ienta t ion widens the range of possibi l i t ies forredis t r ibut ion and control of the f igurai space. By showing that the "reformed"models o f mise en abyme be lon g to the vast do m ain of " textual s im il itudes"

1 6 and

there fore a re types o f " s t ruc tura l metaphors ," he a l so demons t ra tes to what ex ten treflexivi ty— of th e Mallarm ean an d R oussel ian types— can funct ion as a gen erat iveme chanism . But when th i s me chanism is geared for p roduc t ion of "pu re tes t, " andthe funct ion of repre sen tat io n is replaced by "au to-re pres enta t ion ," an d u l t imatelynonrepresentat ion, then the novel , as a category of narra t ive , and l i tera ture i tse l fa re no longer poss ib le . The " tex t" tha t comes in to be ing as the produc t o f the"scr iptural act ivi ty" carr ies the an t i -hum anis t offensive to its logical l imit . T h ro u g ha spec ia l t rea tment o f the persona l p ronoun , the purpose of the nar ra t ive pro jec tis now to "eva cu ate " the subject in o rd er to repla ce th e ideologically invested "reali ty"of the human subject with a grammatical ent i ty . To put i t another way, the s t ructuralist science reaches i ts l imits when the "scriptural activity" consumes i tself inthe l iquidat ion of epis temo logical an d referent ia l l i tera tu re and sets ou t to construc tthe "li terary object" as a model of intell igibil i ty of a presumably "pure" semioticpract ice .

l5 Philipp e Sollers, Le Réflexe de réduction, in Théorie d ensemble, ed. Collective Tel Quel (Paris: Seuil,1968), p. 392.

16Jean Ricardou, Le Nouveau roman (Paris: Seuil, 197 3), pp. 75 , 109 , 111 .

Metaphor and Mise en abyme in the No uveau Rom an 31



But what manner o f pur i ty can emerge f rom the ax io log ica l deser t begot tenby such a pract ice? Can there be a s ignifying pract ice—"prat ique s ignif iante"—inthe apor i s t i c quagmire o f a l inguis t ic Eden wi thout o r ig in? What the nouveau nouveau roman dem on stra tes mo st clear ly is that the fo r tunes of the novel an d ul t imatelythose of l i tera ture i tse l f were gambled pr imari ly on the assumptions made on thenature of analogy. In terms of the ini t ia l chal lenge which quest ions the " theology"

of the analogical re la t ion, the s t ructural is t l ight is not adequate . By dr iving thedialectics of form to the level of language articulations, the challenge is simplyresta ted, only more dramatical ly . The radical ism that evolved from Robbe-Gri l le t ' srhetoric of the 1950s ult imately challenges the very foundation of all systems ofmetaphysics in the West , the Greco-Chris t ian logos. In the dizzying perspect iveswh ich this chal leng e suggests , any kind of radical act ion m ust focus its a ims on thesystematic destruct ion of a cul tural endowment whose l i fe has been undis turbedfor thousands of years . And dar ing act ion in response to that chal lenge is by nomeans lack ing . In the exp lora tory ven tures a t tempted by th inkers l ike Der r ida ,Deleuze, or Blanchot or by Derr ida 's disciples on this s ide of the Atlant ic—P. de

Man and J .H. Mil ler , among others—any and al l associa t ions between l i tera ture asa va lue and the concept o f meaning in the "presence of the word" a re p rec luded .If th is new trend of thought , chimerical as i t may seem, succeeds in making aconvincing case for a reasoned, secular "deconstruct ionism," the Saussur ian premises of s t ructural l inguis t ics and the f ixi ty of binary determinat ions that dominatedthe epis temology of language for so long may wel l suffer a severe erosion, indeedthey may even have to be abandoned. Against th is kind of chal lenge, the force o rimportance of l i terature will have to be faced as a totally new, basic philosophicalques t ion .

3 The International Fiction Review, 10, No. 1 (1983)

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