Abstract

This thesis explores the status of language in the novels of Sarraute and Beckett and in the writings of Lacan. By initiating a dialogue between texts from two different discursive fields, my study reveals the way in which all three authors expand the reader's understanding of the "literary subject". ;Chapter One reviews previous critical interpretations of Sarraute's texts which tend to combine the Sarrautean conception of the "tropism" with thematic readings of her work. In contrast to these studies, I propose that a close, textual reading which incorporates the notion of the "tropism" allows the reader to appreciate fully the originality of Sarraute's writings. By analyzing a passage from Sarraute's autobiographical novel, Enfance, I am able to uncover Sarraute's obsession with language which marks her understanding of human subjectivity. ;Chapter Two presents a reading of Lacan's "Le stade du mirroir comme formateur de la fonction du Je". By approaching this text by way of Sarraute, I focus on the way Lacan's essay materializes instead of on any single "message" he might be intending to convey. I conclude that Lacan's theoretical essays teach as much about the activities of writing and reading as they do about any particular psychoanalytic "concept". ;Chapter Three examines both the rhetoric and the structure of Beckett's trilogy . I identify a certain linguistic "quickening" which inversely parallels the progressive mobilization of the "characters" of the trilogy. It was this "quickening" which drew my attention to the primacy of words in Beckett's text. ;Chapter Four provides a context for the exchange between Beckett and Lacan. Whereas in Chapter Two I concentrated on the process of writing, here I focus on the process of reading. In this chapter, I examine Lacan's essay "L'Instance de la lettre dans l'inconscient ou la raison depuis Freud" in order to demonstrate how Lacan's interest in spatial metaphors illuminates not only his idea of the subject but also his understanding of his own place within Western philosophical thought. I conclude this chapter with some reflections on the impact of my research on my own pedagogical practice