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Minahen, Advisor Approved by Professor Danielle Marx-Scouras Advisor Professor Karlis Racevskis Department of French and Italian UMI Number: 9941338 Copyright 1999 by Hall, Jennifer Elizabeth All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9941338 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48103 Copyright by Jennifer Elizabeth Hall 1999 ABSTRACT Lurking in the shadows of metaphor, the all-embracing and privileged trope that has monopolized literary discourse, metonymy finds itself in an inferior position. Considered to lack metaphor's intelligibility and defying easy interpretation, metonymy has not reached the grand heights of its counterpart. Undeniably, it is metaphor that has achieved a revered status in our literary culture, esteemed by many to be the trope par excellence. But attitudes are changing. Just a cursory glance at recent critical work reveals a new interest in metonymy. Not only is metonymy being looked at as a basic conceptual framework, but as a cultural and linguistic device for questioning norms and traditions. Indeed, metonymy's strength comes from its capacity to challenge unities. It offers resistance to totalizing claims, suspending identity and closure. Thus, its unauthoritative qualities, instead of being its weakness, are now being regarded its strength, lending it a subversive and, at times, threatening presence. The subversive qualities of metonymy, which can dismantle metaphor's pretensions, are particularly revealing in bodily depictions. Challenging the body as whole, metonymy (dis) figures and disperses it. 11 revealing instead its imminent, fragmented parts. Flaubert, Céline, Sartre, and Ponge all employ metonymic structures in relation to the body, while much scholarship has been devoted to studying the metonymic body in Flaubert, it has not received full treatment in Céline, Sartre, and Ponge. Thus, deriving from Flaubert metonymic structures of subversion, this dissertation demonstrates the trope's reappearance in more modern texts, where it continues to challenge and debase the metaphoric body. Ill Dedicated to my parents IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I wish to thank my advisor, Charles D. Minahen, whose continued encouragement, genuine enthusiasm, and intellectual guidance truly helped to make this dissertation possible. His stylistic and thematic suggestions, in welcomed telephone calls and office conversations, stimulated my work on both the form and content of this dissertation. It is with sincere gratitude that I acknowledge him as a mentor, who has advised, instructed, and intellectually challenged me, not only during my dissertation, but in course work on nineteenth- century literature. He has taught me much about developing am idea and the creative value of searching for le mot juste. I thank him for helping to foster my professional growth and will fondly remember the many ways in which he contributed to the start of my academic career. I wish to thank Danielle Marx-Scouras for her exhilarating teaching and intellectual support, which prompted me to pursue twentieth-century studies and to explore, more specifically, the body as textual matter. I appreciate her being a member of my dissertation committee, but, more generally, I appreciate her continued enthusiasm for my work. Her own commitment to meaningful research has inspired me to approach my own work with the same fervor and personal dedication. I am grateful to Karlis Racevskis for stimulating my interest in critical theory. His ability to make interdisciplinary connections in his teaching has helped to broaden my own interests and has encouraged me to consider all intellectual pursuits as being ultimately related. I thank him for participating on my dissertation committee, but more importantly, for having provoked my critical thinking during course work--a constant reminder of why I chose this field. I also wish to thank my partner, Glenn Corey, for his constant encouragement. His sense of humor and intellectual curiosity positively spurred my thinking process and subsequently served to nurture my writing. I am thankful for his broad interests, for our discussions about literature and language, and for helping to make learning part of our daily lives. I am especially indebted to his kindness during the last three weeks, for having rescued me from unexpected computer problems. Without his help, this dissertation would not have reached its final, completed state when it did. Finally, I thank my family and friends for their on-going faith in m e . VI VITA 1991 B.A. French., Sociology, Beloit College 1994 M.A. French., University of Wisconsin-Madison 1994-present ........... Graduate Teaching Associate, French and Italian Department, The Ohio State University 1994-present ........... Peer Teaching Supervisor, French and Italian Department, The Ohio State University FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: French and Italian Minor Field: Pedagogy Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................... ii Dedication ............................................................. iv Acknowledgments..........................................................v Vita................................................................... vii Chapters 1. Introduction to Metonymy ........................................... 1 2. Metonymy and the Body: Disillusionment and Unfulfilled Desire in Flaubert and Céline ................................................... 54 3. Metonymy and the Body: Loss of a Metaphysical Self in Flaubert and Sartre............................................................. 108 4. Metonymy and the Body: Le Parti pris in Flaubert and Ponge .....163 5. Conclusion.........................................................215 Bibliography ..........................................................221 Vlll CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO METONYMY La métaphore est la figure centrale de toute rhétorique parce qu'il convient à l'esprit, dans sa faiblesse, que toutes choses, fût-ce les figures, aient un centre. --Gérard Genette ("La Rhétorique restreinte" 33) Lurking in the shadows of metaphor, the central, all-embracing, and privileged trope that has traditionally monopolized literary discourse, metonymy often finds itself in an inferior and subordinate position. Indeed, the comments of several prominent critics betray metonymy's lesser status. Stephen Ullmann, in Language and Style, casts doubt on metonymy's creative potential: "It is true that metonymy lacks the originality and the expressive power of metaphor" (177), and George Lakoff, in Metaphors Me Live By, attributes our conceptual system largely to metaphorical thought processes, touching only briefly on the role of metonymy. Roman Jakobson, in a similar vein, discusses the mediocrity of metonymy, a trope that "défie facilement l'interprétation" and that consequently has not attained the grand heights of its more august counterpart, metaphor: "C'est pourquoi rien de comparable à la riche littérature écrite sur la métaphore ne peut être cité en ce qui concerne la théorie de la métonymie" (66). In the hierarchy of literary tropes, metonymy has in effect been eclipsed by metaphor, "the all- encompassing trope" according to Aristotle (Shapiro 5), and "the figure of figures," as Culler cogently demonstrates (Pursuit 189) . Relying on "conventional associations between objects and concepts rather than on 'originally' observed similarities" (Warhol 75), metonymy has not been accorded the same attention, nor gained the same appeal, as metaphor. Undeniably, it is metaphor that has achieved a revered status in our literary