Colette et le serpent
Institution:
NantesDisciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
This study, colette and the snake is made of three parts. The first one draws up a list of ophidian meetings, swimming or creeping grass-snakes, adders and pythons. The writing methods show a creature that, whether ordinary or monstrous, always remains strange. Fear arouses the writer's need to understand and then describe precisely. The other parts single out metaphoric uses. Firstly, in the second part, animals, environmental effects - very close or more distant - detected through ophidian good points, broaden to a dreamlike or even utopian place. Then the snake indicates advent of a perfect world. Simple or indirect images and revised cliches are then used. The third one presents the problems of the female body with gradually more complex figures: the awakening development of the senses, woman cunning and colette's main idea that love leads to decline. Then the conflict with the motherly concept of sensuality comes to light as it resolve with "la naissance du jour" a novel which clarifies the previous ones, full of hardship and strains. At last, a new and complex figure appears - the "double slope". The woman is faced with contradictions showed by two metaphors: she must avoid to be taken in by obsessive pleasures but also overcome the tests of time that ruin her beauty. If sensual pleasures seems a successfull slide with the metaphoric "necklace", me power of time appears with the "wisteria" that shows its destructrice force against the female body and the overall perspective of the works of man.
Abstract FR:
Cette etude, colette et le serpent comporte trois parties. La premiere inventorie les rencontres de serpents: couleuvres aquatiques ou terrestres, viperes et pythons. Les choix d'ecriture revelent un animal qui, ordinaire ou monstrueux, reste etrange: la crainte suscite le besoin de comprendre puis de decrire avec precision. Les autres parties privilegient des emplois metaphoriques. La seconde analyse le decor: objets, animaux, elements de l'environnement immediat ou plus lointain, percus au travers de qualites ophidiennes plutot positives; elargissement vers un ailleurs reve ou utopique. Le serpent signale alors l'avenement d'un monde parfait. Images simples, equivalences ou cliches remodeles sont employes par colette. La troisieme partie presente la problematique du corps feminin avec des images progressivement complexes: eveil a la sensualite, duplicite feminine mais aussi decheance liee a l'amour. Ensuite, l'affrontement a la conception maternelle de la volupte se revele en meme temps qu'il se resout avec la naissance du jour, eclairant les romans anterieurs marques d'epreuves et de tensions. Enfin, la figure du "double versant" apparait. Le corps feminin est confronte a des contradictions exprimees par des images essentielles; la femme doit eviter le piege de l'obsession voluptueuse et surmonter les epreuves du temps pesant sur sa beaute. Si la volupte s'affirme triomphante avec le "collier, la puissance du temps finit par s'imposer avec la "glycine" qui montre sa force destructrice, elargissant la perspective aux oeuvres des hommes.