REGARDS PRISMATIQUES DES PERSONNAGES DE MARIE NDIAYE (COMÉDIE CLASSIQUE ET LADIVINE) (Prismatic looks of the characters of Marie NDiaye (Comédie classique and Ladivine))

Abstract

Among the oddities that populate the literary world of Marie NDiaye, there is one aspect that plays on the subjectivity of the perspective. This is something that binds two novels of Marie NDiaye apparently totally different. Comédie classique (1987) is written in the first person, with one focalizer who attributes words, gestures, thoughts to those around him. In Ladivine (2013), the writer multiplies voices and glances: there are five perspectives that alternate. Each focalizer works like a prism that breaks the reader’s vision of the characters. The image of the protagonists is therefore built on the tension between the vision of oneself and others, between the desire to appear and the sometimes opaque reality, between the visible and the invisible.

Keywords

• Marie NDiaye
• prism
• internal focalization
• look
• visible
• invisible