Reflexões sobre o estranho-familiar em Mon coeur à l’étroit, de Marie NDiaye e A metamorfose de Frantz Kafka

Abstract

Abstract:

In this article, we will analyze the novel Mon coeur à l’étroit (2007) [My Heart Hemmed In (2017)] by the French writer Marie Ndiaye and propose an interface with the novel The Metamorphosis (1915) by F.Kafka, and the short story The Sandman (1815) by E. A. T. Hoffman, which served as a reference for Sigmund Freud (1919) in the construction of the “unfamiliar” concept. These literary works move towards unusual as they insert unrealistic elements which could be related to the traumatic and narcissistic wounds of the protagonists. In summary, based on the literary discourse on the Fantastic (TODOROV) and the psychoanalytic discourse on the unfamiliar (FREUD) and the Real (LACAN), we aim to reflect upon the metamorphosis experience and the unusual in the selected narratives. Our analysis suggests that the idea of Real, as proposed by J. Lacan (1975), as something that is on the opposite side of the reality, configuring itself in the order of the unnamable, of what would escape from a clear, organized, and rational expression, would approach to the category of Fantastic because it is a narrative mode that proposes to express the unheard of and the disquieting strangeness that inhabits us.

Keywords: Unfamiliar ;  Fantastic ;  Unusual in fiction ; Psychoanalysis; French Literature